525 
6 

py 1 



God and War 



By 
PROF. L.T. TOWNSEND, D.D.,S.T.D. 

Author of Credo, God-Man, etc. 




PRICE 25 CENTS 



CONTENTS 

PAGB 

No Accidents in this World 3 

God Rules in Human Affairs 4 

When Will the Present War End 5 

Will the Armies of the Kaiser and His Allies or those of Great Britain and 

Her Allies be Victorious 5 

Numbers and Guns not Always Decisive 6 

Germany and the Turks Need Chastisement 7 

Great Britain, France and Russia Need Chastisement 7-8 

Are the United States to be Involved in the War 8 

The United States are Guilty of Sins of Conmiission and Omission 9 

Mexico and Armenia 10-13 

John Bright's Prediction 17 

Mr. Bryan's Views Invite War and Disaster 17 

Lincoln Colcord's Vision of War 21 

God not Always for Peace 21 

The Command, "Thou Shalt Not Kill" 22 

Bible Revelation and War 23 

War a Necessity in a World of Wheat and Tares 27 

War 'and the War Spirit of Service to the World 30 

No Apology called for in the Announcement of Christ — *T am not come 

to send peace on earth but a sword" 37 

Monetary Cost and Death Roll of War 37 

False Views of Life and Death 38 

Is God Working out a Plan that may Involve the United States and the 

Entire World in War 39 

Self-assurance Invites War 39 

The Peril of Conflicting Interests 40 

Isolation No Longer a Protection 40 

The Monroe Doctrine ; 41 

The United States No Longer Feared 41 

The Possible Bankruptcy of thd 'Warring Nations 43 

Germany and Japan 44-48 

Carranza and Villa 48 

What May Become of the War Loan 50-51 

A Nation's Only Hope are Preparedness and a Trust in God 52-55 



God and War 



By 
PROF. L. T. TOWNSEND. D.D.,S,.T.D. 

Author of Credo, God-Man, etc. 



Published by 

CHAPPLE PUBLISHING COMPANY, Ltd. 

BOSTON. MASS. 
1915 



Copyright, 1915 
by 
L. T. TOWNSEND. 



CI.A42()242 



\(^ 



DEC II 1915 



God and War 



THERE are no accidents in this world," was the opening 
sentence of the eulogy spoken by Charles Sumner after 
the death of Abraham Lincoln. And the longer one 
lives the more inclined is one to introduce that sentence, 
"there are no accidents," into one's religious creed. 
In an oration of Edward Everett are these words : 

When a great event is to be brought about in the order of 
Providence, the first thing which arrests the attention of the student 
of history in after-times is the appearance of the fitting instruments 
for its accomplishment. They come forward and take their places 
on the great stage of action. They know not themselves for what 
they are raised up, but there th6y are. 

Daniel Webster expressed the same thought when saying: 

God has a Providence in human affairs; and it is a part of that 
Providence to triumph over error, and to assign to the actors in 
great events their proper places. 

Victor Hugo in his remarkable essay on Mirabeau con- 
cludes his analysis thus: 

Who among us does not feel, amid the tumult of the tempest, 
amid the conflicts of all the systems and all the ambitions that raise 
so much smoke and dust, that under yonder veil still hiding from our 
eyes the providential statue hardly yet hewn, behind the cloud of 
theories, passions, and chimeras, crossing, jostling, and devouring 
one another in the fog; beyond that sound of the human word 
which speaks all tongues at the same time through all mouths, under 
that violent whirlwind of things, man and ideas called the nine- 
teenth century — who does not feel that something great is being 
accomplished? And God remains calm and does his work. 

And who in this twentieth century if he thinks soberly for an 
hour or more does not feel that God, in the midst of the present 

* This booklet is the substance of an address deHvered before the National 
Reform Convention at Park St. Church, Boston, Mass., October 19, 1915, by 
Professor L. T. Townsend, D.D.,St.D. 



4 GOD AND WAR 

awful tumult of inconsistencies, remains calm as He did in the 
nineteenth century and does His work now as he did then? 

The foregoing quotations show conclusively that these 
men were able to grasp in some measure at least the sublime 
truth, that God rules in the affairs of men, in times of war as 
well as in times of peace. And these quotations also show 
that the men who spoke those words were in fellowship with 
the inspired writers of the Book of Books. 

One of its greatest, wisest and earliest writers thus repeats 
the words of Jehovah: 

See now that I, even I, am he and there is no God with me: 
I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal; neither is there any 
that can deliver out of my hands. — Deut. 32:39. 

And this, in the prophecy of Isaiah, is of the same theistic 
complexion : 

I am the Lord and there is none else; there is no God beside 
me. I girded thee (speaking of Cyrus), though thou has not known 
me. — Isa. 45:5. 

This same thought is spoken by another of the Jehovah 
prophets : 

And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; 
and he doeth according to his will in the armies of Heaven and 
among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand, or 
say unto him, What doest thou? — Dan. 4:35. 

These quotations, and there are many others of the same 
import, make it clear that modern atheism, that rules God 
out of pretty much all equations, except those where we may con- 
veniently admit Him, and that plunges us into a sea of anxiety 
and perplexity whenever anything untoward happens, had no 
grip on those Old Testament prophets. 

And is there any other message that would more likely 
afford assurance and comfort in view of what is now transpiring 
at home and abroad than this, — that God's hand is directing 
whatever is taking place, sunshine or tempest, though to our 
impatient age he seems to linger when we think there should 
be haste. 

During this hour, then, let us dismiss, if we can do so, 
the atheism of the day and bring God back to our thoughts — 
the God who notes the fall of the sparrow, who numbers the 
hair of the head and who cannot, therefore, be disregardful 



GOD AND WAR 5 

of what is now taking place among the peoples of Europe and 
Asia, or be unmindful either of what our own country is doing in 
the way of helping on a carnage unequaled in ancient or modern 
warfare and doing our part of it for gain and nothing else. 

This that we have been saying should help in answering 
three or four questions that are being constantly asked. 

The first is this: When will the war close; in one more 
year, or five or ten? No man on earth can tell, is the reply, 
unless the gods reveal it to him. There have been already many 
predictions and the time has passed when some of them, if 
true, should have been fulfilled. And others of them are much 
out of the way so far as one can now" see. The only sane pre- 
diction seems, therefore, to be this : When the Almighty Ruler 
of the Universe sees that there has been accomplished what he 
intended when he permitted the nations of Europe to make 
war upon one another, then will the war close, and not a day, 
nor an hour sooner. We may hold peace conventions, but that 
will not end the war. Men of wealth may contribute millions 
of money to secure peace but that will not end the war, and 
as for that matter, such money might as well be thrown to 
the bottom of the sea. The head of the Roman Catholic 
Church may admonish and plead and pray for peace until 
his voice is hoarse, or hushed in death, but that will accomplish 
no more in the future than it has in the past. 

Christian men, churches and conventions may vote and 
pray, but that w^ill not bring peace to the fighting nations. 
And the only way to pray for peace is the way men should 
pray for all things else — always closing with, "Thy will be 
done." God's plans concerning the war may be a long way 
yet from their accomplishment. And the end, as we said 
before, will not be until his plans and purposes are accomplished. 
God's plans may be to punish a disobedient world, on an arena 
larger than we yet have dreamed, before peace shall be 
restored. 

The second question often asked is this: Will the armies 
of the Kaiser and his allies in the end be victorious, or will 
victory be with Great Britain and her allies? 

There are people who talk as if very sure that the armies 
of Germany and Austria cannot fight much longer and must 
surrender. They do not see how Germany can contend suc- 
cessfully against superior numbers, aided by money, war muni- 



6 GOD AND WAR 

tions and sympathy from the United States. So it would seem, 
if God has no interest or control in the affairs of men. 

The only way, however, to answer the question is this: 
God and not man is on the throne and victory will be as he 
intended when the war began. If it is best, all things con- 
sidered, that Germany shall dictate terms of peace and have 
her say as to settlements, boundaries and indemnities; and 
if it is best for Great Britain, France and Russia to be humili- 
ated and beaten under the blows of the Teutons, or be plunged 
into bankruptcy, and if God has so determined, then the 
question of numbers, money or sympathy will play but a small 
part in having it otherwise. Victory is not always with the 
strongest battalions is what sacred history has recorded. 
We are assured that one shall chase a thousand and two put 
ten thousand to flight, if the Lord be so minded. 

The sword, the spear and the shield in the hands of a 
giant shall avail nothing against a pebble, if that is the Lord's 
plan. Trumpets and pitchers with nothing but candles in 
them, in the hands of only thi-ee hundred men who could 
shout, "The sword of the Lord and Gideon," put to flight, 
in a panic the mighty hosts of Midian. The words of assurance 
spoken to the people of Israel by a servant of God were these: 

When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies, and seest 
horses and chariots, and a people more than thou, be not afraid of 
them: for the Lord thy God is with thee, which brought thee up 
out of the land of Egypt. 

And it shall be, when ye are come nigh luito the battle, that 
the priest shall approach and speak unto the people, and shall say 
unto them, Hear, O Israel; ye approach this day unto battle against 
your enemies: let not your hearts faint; fear not, and do not tremble, 
neither be ye terrified because of them; for the Lord your God is 
he that goeth with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to 
save you. — Deut. 20:1-4. 

And later we read these words : 

And the children of Israel pitched before them like two little 
flocks of kids; but the Syrians filled the country. And they pitched 
one over against the other seven days; and so it was, that in the 
seventh day the battle was joined: and the children of Israel slew 
of the Syrians an hundred thousand footmen in one day. But the 
rest fled to Aphek, into the city; and there a wall fell upon twenty 
and seven thousand of the men that were left. x\nd Ben-hadad fled 
and came into the city, into an inner chamber. — / Kings 27:30. 

"Two little flocks of kids" put to flight a mighty host! 



GOD AND WAR 7 

For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise 
of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host: 
and they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against 
us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come 
upon us. Wherefore they arose, and fled in the twilight, and left 
their tents, and their horses, and their asses, even the camp as it 
was, and fled for their life. — // Kings 6:7. Comp. Amos 2:14-16. 

And other unaccountable and uncontrollable panics 
have decided, instead of numbers and guns, the fate of armies. 
And in some instances we now see that such panics were for 
the best, all things considered. 

According to the rules of war, Napoleon should have con- 
quered at Waterloo. He never could understand why he was 
defeated. But God knew, and He is above the rules of war. 

But the question recurs, Will Great Britain and her allies 
or will Germany and her allies be victorious? No man on 
earth knows, is the repeated answer, though all men on earth 
can guess or may think they know. But it is God alone who 
will determine in the end who shall conquer and who shall 
be defeated, and his decision all things considered, will be 
wisest and best. 

It may be difficult to see why Germany with her monstrous 
materialism, her brutal military ambitions and disregard of 
international law, and her murderous assaults upon passenger 
steamships, can be victorious. Nor is it much less difficult 
for one to see why the abominable Turk, the ally of Germany, 
with a cruelty almost more than barbarous and blasphemous, 
should not be overwhelmingly defeated and swept from the 
face of the earth. 

But, on the other hand, Great Britain has hardly been on 
such good behavior as to insure the Divine favor. Nor has 
she been scarcely less ambitious than Germany and perhaps 
no less arbitrary and despotic in ruling some of her dependencies 
than Germany has been. Can God approve of a government 
that places a tax of two hundred and twenty-five million yearly 
upon the poor people of India, expending one hundred million 
upon an army in which no Indian can be an officer.'^ Is England 
dealing fairly when in proportion to the income of the people 
she places a tax nearly twice as heavy upon India as upon her 
home country .f^ An Indian's yearly income on an average is 
only ten dollars, while that of an Englishman is two hundred. 



8 GOD AND WAR 

Sir Henry Cotton shows that the average per capita deposits 
in the banks in England is one hundred dollars, while the aver- 
age per capita deposit in India is fifty cents. May not such 
greed and oppression justly provoke God's displeasure and 
chastisement? At all events England is now having to part 
with some measure of what seems to be ill-gotten wealth and 
in ways least to be desired. Nor should it be forgotten that 
England has attempted the starvation of all the German 
people and would do it today if she could.* 

And may not France with her social evils and religious 
disregard need correction ? And is it easy to see why the brutal 
ally of Great Britain and France, we mean Russia, with her 
tyranny and long persecution of the Hebrew people, having 
Siberia for a prison house, should pull out of the conflict with 
victory perched on her banners? 

While, therefore, there are many things of which we are 
not sure, there are other things of which we are sure — two at 
least, one of which is that while Germany and allies are guilty 
of what deserves correction, England and her allies are a long 
way from meriting divine approval. The other thing of which 
we are sure is that whoever gains the victory, the kingdom of 
Christ will make an advance and the hand of God will be seen 
when the smoke of battle clears away. 

This brings us to the third question: Are the United 
States to be involved in this war; or after the war will they be 
called upon to adjust some unadjusted disputes, and do this 
at the mouth of the cannon? The reply is, that no man knows. 
No magician, or astrologer, or sorcerer, or Chaldean, or states- 
man, or jurist, or poet, or essayist, or clergyman can answer 
that question, with an assurance that the answer will be the 
right one. Strenuous efforts are making to keep ourselves 
clear of trouble. Petitions have been going up to the President 
of the United States to keep his hands off, and many seem to 
think that he has been navigating the ship of state on the 
whole with remarkable wisdom; and perhaps he has, but he has 
been far at sea and his course has been about as vacillating as 
it could be, and for all he can do, the ship may go on to the 



* It appears to bs well established thit the German Emperor wanted peace 
during his reign. He was spoken of by Mr. Carnegie as "The peace-loving monarch." 
It also has been shown thit French soldiers, enemies of Germany, entered Belgium 
twenty-four hours ahead of the Germans. 



GOD AND WAR 9 

rocks any day or hour. And all his advisors are equally ineffi- 
cient in protecting this country against being involved in war. 
It is God who has that matter in hand; and if he sees that we 
need severe chastisement then it will come, in one way or 
another, sooner or later; and if war, all things considered, 
is the healthiest form of correction for us, then it will be war, 
and twenty presidents and forty Bryans, if lecturing before 
Chautauqua assemblies three times a day cannot prevent it. 

And who can doubt that this country needs chastisement — 
a country that has no constitutional recognition of God; a 
country abounding in prosperity, with only a formal kind of 
gratitude once a year to the Merciful Giver of All Things; a 
country whose civilization is permeated with commercial 
greed and other unsanctified ambitions; a country that is now 
congratulating itself that while Europe is bankrupting, we are 
heaping up money by the million, without caring whether the 
war is prolonged by it, provided we can sell the goods at a 
profit; a country in partnership with a traffic whose victims 
of misery and death outnumber many fold those of the battle- 
field; a country that manufactures rum and sends it by the 
shipload to the poor and benighted people of Africa, simply 
for the money gotten out of it, though it adds wretchedness to 
a people already wretched enough, as God knows. We are 
not entirely given over to badness, there is a measure of good- 
ness, but the iniquity, hypocrisy and greed of which we are 
guilty is incredible — amazingly so when we stop to think 
about it. And as a nation, we are remiss and sinful in other 
matters — in sins of omission as well as those of commission. 

At this point one could not do otherwise than expect a 
few words as to our remissness in Mexico. And may I be 
pardoned for saying that I have been a student of Mexican 
affairs and history for several years. I have been through the 
country from the Rio Grande to Progreso, Yucatan. I have 
eaten the food of the poorest people and have slept on the 
floor of adobe huts, where there was but one room for an entire 
family, where there never had been a bed or chair, and have 
eaten where there never had been a table, a knife or a fork. 
I have worn the dress of a Mexican and have been asked by 
tourists if I could speak English. I have preached in Mexico 
with a revolver in sight in my belt, and have been a witness of 
things so distressing that they are difficult of belief. On the 



10 GOD AND WAR 

other hand, I have been entertained by some of the wealthiest 
famihes in the RepiibHc and received from the Governor of 
the Federal District passes that enabled me to visit places 
from which the general public is excluded. I met a cordial 
reception in the national palace at the hands of President Diaz 
and had for an escort his only son. In a word, through the 
guidance of four brave missionaries, including the very effi- 
cient superintendent, Dr. J. W. Butler, I have had very rare 
opportunities to study the people of Mexico under all condi- 
tions of life, in that wonderful country. I may be pardoned 
for saying this much, because of my desire to establish the claim 
that from personal observation I have some knowledge of 
Mexico and her people. 

Since our war with that country, 1848, there have been 
twenty-five revolutions and during the century of Mexican 
independence there have been seventy-five years of war. 
And during all these years the great mass of Mexicans, eighteen 
millions out of twenty, in a country unmatched in natural 
resources, have remained half famished, kept in ignorance 
and superstition, suffering every conceivable wrong and crying 
to God for help and mercy. 

During the last four years our country has been hearing 
that cry as never before and yet we, their neighbors, have been 
waiting and watching and doing scarcely anything by the way 
of actual relief. Is that playing the part of the Good Samari- 
tan whom Christ commended? Rather, have we not been 
acting the part of the priest and Levite, who passed by on the 
other side of the road leaving the victim of robbery, for all 
they, cared, to die of the wounds that had been inflicted? 
And fittingly that priest and Levite have been held up to the 
world for two thousand years as examples of all that is despica- 
ble in human nature. 

And almost worse than this, we have sold to the different 
warring factions of Mexico, until the recognition of Carranza, 
poAvder and guns simply because we are making money out of 
it. We have been taking from that people all we could get, 
but have done nothing that amounts to a bundle of shucks 
to end the causes of their trouble. Cowardice and selfishness 
as to our conduct of Mexican affairs is the verdict of a world 
of surprised lookers-on. Ours is the cowardice of a people who 
have lost their faith in God and his righteousness. And we are 



GOD AND WAR U 

losing at the same time the most splendid opportnnity any 
nation ever had to act the part of a good Samaritan to this 
next door neighbor. And beside this, we are losing perhaps 
the best opportnnity the United States ever will have of teach- 
ing the whole world a lesson in moral grandeur by doing for 
the millions of those wretched peons what a Christian nation 
ought to do. 

And yet there are men among us who seem to care nothing 
for all this, and who would have conditions continue there just 
as thq^ have been for two hundred years rather than lift a 
finger to make them better. The miserable feeling is that we^ 
must do nothing that can get us into trouble, and that the look- 
ing after Mexicans is, after all, none of our business. None of 
our hu.nness? God asked Cain this question, "Where is Abel, 
thy brother?" Cain replied, "I know not; am I my brother's 
keeper?" In other words, it is none of my business where Abel 
is. That was Cain's answer to God's question. But Cain was 
a murderer and God cursed him. 

Our neglect of opportunity and duty in Mexico may prove 
more troublesome later on, than anything now threatening on 
this side of the Atlantic; of this we will speak later. Had faith 
in God, instead of cowardice and selfishness been in control, 
we, before now, could have saved hundreds and thousands of 
lives; we could have brought peace to that country after 
giving assurance to her people that we were there, not to add 
to our territory, but to help settle their differences and to end 
their warfare. 

We did give that assurance on a small scale while in Vera 
Cruz, and in doing so we lost no friendship on the part of the 
Mexican people. But we cowardly withdrew and their troubles 
have not diminished since our warships sailed away. Our 
government could have lifted that people on to a plane where 
they would have had what never has been theirs, since the fall 
of Montezuma — the treatment due human beings. We could 
have lifted Mexican women out of a pitiful degradation and 
have introduced them to the blessings of a Christian civiliza- 
tion. We could before now have shown the poor peons how 
to build houses of brick instead of mud and have shown them 
how to hope instead of living in despair. We could have shown 
them how to rise from almost helpless apathy into the altitude 
of the sons of God. 



12 GOD AND WAR 

But there they are, a wretched people still, and we have 
been for two years waiting and watching; and at Niagara 
Falls, in New York City and Washington we have been and 
are still hobnobbing with A. B. C, 

But some one may be saying, Have we not recognized 
Carranza as the ruler of Mexico, and is not that a step forward? 
Does any one who knows Mexico believe that that recognition 
will right the wrongs of two hundred years ? If his recognition 
is redemptive, the step should have been taken two years ago 
and have shortened by so much the misery and death roll 
of that people. 

And notice this vacillation, that after adopting the policy 
of non-intervention, and after proposing to unite the different 
warring factions in order to secure a stable government, we 
have recognized the only leader among them all who spurned 
the proposals of the United States. Such is the man that the 
United States have recognized as the head of Mexican affairs — 
a man capable of perpetrating unspeakable villianies, unprint- 
able outrages, and unthinkable brutalities. His recognition 
means that Mexico is to be governed not by the worthy men 
who have fled the country, but by a gang of criminals, led by 
a prince of criminals, whose word and promise mean absolutely 
nothing. From our point of view, the recognition of Carranza 
is a crime against civilization and against humanity, and if we 
mistake not, he will prove not many months hence to be the 
most obdurate and troublesome foe to all things our government 
had hoped for, and in case of war, so far as an alliance between 
the United States and Mexico is concerned. Villa, bad as he is, 
would have been far more trustworthy and of greater service. 

After being helped into a position of authority by the 
United States and furnished with munitions of war, Carranza 
is just the man to sell out to Japan, Germany or any other 
country, or make alliances with them unfavorable to the United 
States, if a tempting offer were made. The recognition of that 
man Carranza from almost every point of view is not a step 
forward but a long step backward. Unfortunate Mexico, 
unwittingly but cowardly betrayed by the United States of 
America! And by this betrayal we have advanced towards 
the war zone instead of moving away from it, as presently 
will be seen. 

But we must leave Mexico, and call attention to another 



GOD AND WAR 13 

splendid opportunity for the United States, to say something, 
or better do something, that might establish our right to an 
existence among the nations of the earth and gain God's 
approval. We have in inind the persecution of the people of 
Armenia. 

For information on this subject we have the report of 
the secretary of the Committee on Armenian Atrocities, 
Professor Samuel T. Dutton. And we have the statements 
of returned missionaries and those of the correspondents of 
the London Chronicle and the London Times. And we have 
the report of Monsignor Diilci, the apostolic delegate to Con- 
stantinople, and these earlier reports are now vouched for by 
British and Italian consuls, by physicians who are on the spot, 
and by officers and teachers of schools and colleges. These 
reports are so well authenticated that no possible doubt can 
longer be attached to them. The one impression received is 
that nothing more terrible and horrible in the way of fiendish 
persecution can be shown on the blood-stained pages of all the 
centuries. There has been a studied and systematic effort on 
part of the young Turks, led by Enver Pasha to exterminate 
an entire race of people. Those of the Armenians who are 
expelled can carry scarcely anything with them and their 
belongings that are left are taken possession of by Moslems 
who move into the vacated houses. In some instances women, 
stripped naked, are compelled to march day after day in that 
condition. Those defenceless and innocent non-Moslem 
Armenians are imprisoned, tortured and unspeakably mutilated. 
The population of some of the districts is completely annihi- 
lated. In a single afternoon the entire Armenian population 
of Trebizond, numbering ten thousand or more, were mur- 
dered. There are among those victims Christian families of 
the highest standing and young men and women who have been 
teachers and who have graduated from American colleges. 
Estimates are made that not fewer than two millions of these 
people have been murdered by the Turks since last May, or 
sent into exile — an exile worse than would be death by hang- 
man or gunman. The caravan routes are marked by the 
most gruesome sights imaginable of unburied and naked 
corpses. 

The mode of exile has been to send from each Armenian 
village day by day as many persons as a railroad train could 



14 GOD AND WAR 

carry. An American missionary, who arrived at Constanti- 
nople the first week of last month, said that he had seen not 
fewer than fifteen thousand Armenians waiting at railroad 
stations to be sent "on a journey from which none would 
ever return." 

When these exiles reach Konish, or some adjacent station, 
they are taken from the train, conducted over Mt. Taurus, 
supplied with a small amount of food and are told to continue 
their journey to Mosul where they will find safety. But before 
many hours have passed they are met by marauding bands of 
Cossacks, Kurds and Bedouins who rob them of everything 
they had taken with them, then kill, or leave them to die of 
starvation and thirst. Not one of those victims ever is known 
to have reached the looked-for destination. Should one try 
to escape in any other direction than the one designated, or 
try to return to his own country, the journey would be a short 
one, for Turkish shepherds have orders to shoot all such at 
sight. And no one acquainted with Turks believes this 
inhumanity will cease until all Armenians are exterminated 
unless there are forcible measures to prevent it. 

Germany and Austria will not back up any protest that 
may be offered, and it is suspected that Germany is involved 
in the murderous plot. Count von Reventlow, in a Dutch 
publication, October 7th, unblushingly upholds these Turkish 
massacres. After referring to the request of the American 
Government that the German ambassador at Washington 
should use his influence with the German Government in 
behalf of the Armenians, the Count adds these words : 

There can be no question of meddling, at the instigation of a 
third party, with the affairs of our Turkish ally. If the Turkish 
authorities believe it opportune to take vigorous measures against 
unreliable, bloodthirsty, riotous Armenian elements, it is not only 
its right, but its duty to do so. Turkey can rest assured that Ger- 
many will always regard the matter as one concerning Turkey alone. 

So nmch for the German attitude. England, France and 
Russia can dp nothing for they are at war with Turkey. Mon- 
signor Diilci rightly declares in a published statement that if 
effective protest and help come at all it must be from America. 

But in all these months what has America been doing.?^ 
W'C have conferred with the German ambassador in W^ashing- 
ton to have these atrocities stopped. And our Secretary of 



GOD AND WAR 15 

State sent a request direct to the Turkish government to desist 
from further persecutions. And is this all that our great 
Christian country is going to do about it? Great God! The 
wonder is that we have escaped chastisement as long as we 
have. But the mills grind late! 

Well, then, it is asked, W^ould you have the United States 
declare war against Turkey? W'e might do a worse thing. But 
if we should say to Turkey with something of the fiery em- 
phasis that the case demands, You stop your murderous work 
or we will stop it for you, so help us God! If we would say 
this, as it ought to be said, and with faith in God, such as we 
ought to have, Turkey would not exile another Armenian. 

Had we the faith in God and the courage of Cromwell, 
our country would have no fear of war with Turkey, whatever 
we might say or do in behalf of the Armenians. Cromwell, 
with sword in hand, said to the Duke of Savoy, "You stop 
the slaughter of the Alpine W'aldenses!" The duke trembled 
and obeyed. Is it to be supposed that if we had Cromwell's 
faith and his courage that Turkey would not tremble and obey 
if we gave command? And may we add that if we had faith 
in God and the courage becoming such a nation as ours, and 
had said to Germany when beginning to trample Belgium 
under foot, you stop or we will join the Entente Allies and 
fight you to a finish, Germany would have made her best bow 
and have found some other way to enter France. 

In evidence of what we are saying may^ we recall a few 
facts from a page or two of history, beginning in 1864. It was 
then that Maximilian sought to found a Roman Catholic 
empire in Mexico. He was supported by Austria, by France, 
and by the Vatican. And this was during the closing dark 
days of our Civil War, when it was thought that the critical 
conditions then existing were such as to prevent any protest 
on the part of the United States. 

But Secretary of State W'illiam H. Seward sent this mes- 
sage to Napoleon III: "You had better withdraw the French 
troops from Mexican soil without any unnecessary delay." 
Napoleon waited for no second admonition, but withdrew his 
army from Mexico, leaving Maximilian to his own fate. Austria 
did nothing. And the Vatican in no way interfered with the 
ruling of the United States, though Carlotta, the wife of 
Maximilian, went to Rome and plead with the Pope to help 



16 GOD AND WAR 

her husband. She plead for two hours, left the Vatican, and 
has been a maniac ever since. 

Under a former Democratic administration, Mr. Cleveland 
notified the great British empire that the United States would 
take a hand in settling the Venezuelan matter. England might 
have said, "You attend to your business and we will attend to 
ours." But she did nothing of the kind; she did what the 
United States required. 

Does any one imagine that if Grover Cleveland were now 
our Democratic president that he would have allowed the 
British government during a year and more, in nearly a hun- 
dred of her ports, to hold up two thousand ships carrying 
American cargoes? Cleveland would have said, "Those ships 
are loaded with food for the hungry; it will damage if detained, 
and American shippers will lose millions of dollars ; let them go 
or the United States will set them free." In fewer than 
ten days the cargoes would have been on the way to their 
destination. 

Secretary of State John Hay made what would seem at the 
present time a tremendous stretch of American authority, 
if not an audacious interference in European and Asiatic 
affairs of state, when he informed the world that China must 
not be involved in the war between Russia and Japan, but 
nuist adhere strictly to neutrality. At that time not a country 
in the world ventured to question the requirement of our 
secretary. Europe, China, Japan, and later, Russia submitted 
and fell into line. 

The administration, right or wrong, recognized the Repub- 
lic of Panama. The Republic of Colombia bristled at the time, 
then became ostensibly submissive. The rest of the world 
hardly passed a criticism, but followed the example of the 
United States, recognizing tlie new republic. 

When a sort of rebellion started on the Isthmus of Panama, 
a few words were spoken by our representative there, a few 
blue jackets appeared on the scene, checked the uprising and 
quiet reigned as if there had been no outbreak. 

And now, what is the moral of these sayings and doings 
of the United States if not this, that we once were what we 
are not now, and that we have degenerated, and that if we 
keep on much longer we shall fail of having "an all-sufficient 
excuse" for an existence as a great republic, and leave a page 



GOD AND WAR 17 

of history that will bring a blush to the faces of our descendants 
when reading it. 

It was John Bright, always our staunch friend, who said, 
that if the war against the Union (1860-1864) failed, and if 
the United States remained united for forty years, not a gun 
could be fired anywhere in the world without our consent. 

But John Bright then had in mind such a president as 
Lincoln, such a secretary of state as Seward, and such a 
secretary of war as Stanton. 

It is hardly believable, or scarcely thinkable, that Lincoln 
and Seward and Stanton would have permitted the humilia- 
tions that have been coming to our country almost every day 
of the week for the two or three years that have passed. And 
were John Bright living today it is likely enough he would 
take back every word of his remarkable prediction. 

From some points of view, in trying to escape from war, 
we are inviting and provoking it. And from similar points 
of view, Mr. Bryan and those who axe obstructing war pre- 
paredness are doing more than all our militant progressives in 
America to bring on the very thing they are trying to avert. 
The government protests, and Bryan-like gives a toss of the 
head, and wink of the eye, as much as to say, we can't fight, 
we won't fight, we would rather die than fight, which, of course, 
negatives any protest and invites more insults and a possible 
disaster. 

We may be pardoned for saying an additional word or 
two about Mr. Bryan, not because he is Mr. Bryan, that would 
make it scarcely worth while, but because he is a Chautauqua 
speaker, and represents a following, many of whom are honest 
but none the less perilous to the best interests of this country. 
We regard Mr. Bryan as one of the most danger-inviting 
men in this republic. He continues to boast that he has been 
instrumental in securing thirty or more peace treaties, but fails 
to see that at present they are scarcely worth the paper they 
are written on, and that they may prove, sooner or later, a 
serious entanglement and embarrassment to the United States. 
Such treaties are for times of peace, but avail nothing in times 
of war. 

July 1st of this year The Temps (Paris) published the 
following open letter by Baron Destournelles de Constant 
to William J. Bryan: 



18 GOD AND WAR 

I fully understand that it is repugnant to you to see the United 
States join the belligerents and give the lives of your sons on the same 
side as ours, but it is much more repugnant to encourage crime by 
making it certain of immunity. The silence of the United States 
government in regard to the invasion of Belgium has surprised all 
your friends. The German people themselves wouM have been 
grateful to you for opening their eyes to the truth, which their own 
government has conceated from them. They would certainly have 
been impressed by the infamy and the enormity of the crimes for 
which they have been made responsible, if you had raised your 
voice; then they might, perhaps, have recoiled with horror. And 
what are you doing now.'* You are preaching peace. What kind of 
peace? A peace that will enable German militarism to retire from 
the struggle unhurt, to make preparations for another attempt 
whenever Germany thinks there is a chance to realize its fatal schemes 
of conquest. 

Excuse me, my dear Mr. Bryan, if I speak thus frankly. You 
are acting against your own purpose. You are running the risk of 
prolonging the war by your eloquence. You will cause still further 
bloodshed. The recruits who enlist under your flag are so many 
supporters lost to the good cause — the cause you have advocated all 
your life. We do not want the kind of peace you suggest. We do 
not understand it. We want to remain unregenerate sons of the 
French revolution and the defenders of liberty and justice, just as 
you are the sons of American independence. The peace that you 
expect to see when the combatants are worn out will not be our 
peace. Such a peace, or rather truce, would be worse than death. 

Does Mr. Bryan listen to this friend of his who doubtless 
has studied the peace and war problems with far more thorough- 
ness than Mr. Bryan ever has? Not at all, but he goes on 
repeating for the fiftieth time his Chautauqua lecture that 
contends for peace at any price. 

In the Wildman News Series, 1915, Mr. E. L. Fox reports 
an interview with Professor Ludwig Stein who had been 
the most noted disciple of the world's peace that Europe 
has known. In this interview the professor makes this 
confession: 

You cannot know or feel what it is to reach my age and then 
to realize that everything you have worked for is futile. It is a ter- 
rible thing to have attained sixty and then to have to renounce all 
your ideals — years and years of ideals. But I am convinced, alas, 
that the world today cannot be governed with oil of roses, but only 
with blood. 

It will take about a hundred years to educate and solidify the 
white race alone. It will take about ten thousand years, let us say, 
to educate all the races of the world and achieve a world brotherhood. 



GOD AND WAR 19 

The great mistake that is made is in thinking that the ideals of the 
Bible are possible today. They are utterly impossible. 

I suggest armament for the United States. You say that this 
is against every teaching of the peace propagandist in your country. 
Alas, armament is for this day and generation. If the people of the 
United States believe that the peace movement is bound to save 
them from war, they have either totally misconstrued it or they have 
been grossly misinformed. A nation must be prepared for war. 
If the rulers of a nation leave their country unprepared they are 
guilty of criminal neglect. 

In China its four hundred millions of people are unprepared, 
and are therefore at the mercy of a few million Japanese who are 
prepared. That is because in this generation might is right, and 
all that we workers for peace can do, without injuring our States, 
is to face the facts of this- generation, be prepared for war, if war 
there is to be, and keep on working for our ideal. Anything else is 
a dream. 

No statement of the case could be wiser than this of 
Professor Stein. But does Mr. Bryan listen to this distin- 
guished advocate of peace who has been compelled by the 
stern logic of events to abandon views formerly held and advo- 
cated .^^ Mr. Bryan listen! Is that his way? Is it occasion 
for surprise, therefore, that the general public has a growing 
conviction that Mr. Bryan's conceit is of colossal magnitude? 

And, as before suggested, Mr.' Bryan's position and effort 
are leading straight away from the path of peace to that of 
war. And God does not seem to be profoundly recognized by 
him as he should be, though prayer is offered three times a day. 

The words of Mr. Bryan, repeated by him east and west, 
are enough to make the blood of a sensitive man boil. This is 
what he says: 

If any nation challenges us it is our duty to say, "With the wel- 
fare of a hundred million of people to look after, and the priceless 
traditions to preserve, we will not get down with you and wallow 
in human blood." 

Such a statement is an insult to every soldier who has 
fought for his country's honor or safety. Almost everything 
this ex-secretary of state has said, or has done, makes one feel 
as Elbert Hubbard was wont to say: "If this is the path of 
sanity, kindly direct me to the bug-house." 

Mystics have their place and are entitled no doubt to a 
goodly seat on some platform somewhere, but at the present 



20 ^ GOD AND WAR 

time that place is not in tlie halls of legislation, nor in the 
United States war office. Not mystics, but courageous, wise 
and unselfish God-fearing statesmen should be in evidence 
there. Oiu* peace advocates some day will learn, too late, 
perhaps, that the way to have peace is not to be too eager for it, 
but to be ready to engage in war, when it is an honorable war- 
fare that confronts us. He that is willing to lose his life shall 
in the sublimest sense find it. One of Emerson's immortal 
stanzas fits the hour in which we are living : 

Though love repine and reason chafe, 

There came a voice without reply, — 

'"Tis man's perdition to be safe 

When for the truth he ought to die." 

One is reminded in this we are saying of an incident in 
Israelitish history. It was in the days of Jeremiah the prophet. 
At that time there were i)eace-at-any-price people who through 
fear of the king of Babylon thought best to go to Egypt in 
order to escape war. But the Lord through his prophet gave 
this admonition and command: 

Be not afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom ye are afraid; 
be not afraid of him, saith the Lord: for I am with you to save you, 
and to dehver you from his hand. But if ye say. We will not dwell 
in this land, neither obey the voice of the Lord your God, saying, 
No; but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no 
war, nor hear the sound of a trumpet, nor have hunger of bread; 
and there will we dwell; now, therefore, hear the word of the Lord, 
ye remnant of Judah; Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, 
If ye wholly set your faces to enter into Egypt, and go to sojourn 
there; then it shall come to pass that the sword which ye feared 
shall overtake you there in the land of Egyj)t, and the famine, whereof 
ye are afraid, shall follow close after you there in Egypt; and there 
ye shall die. So shall it be with all the men that set their faces to go 
into Egypt, to sojourn there; they shall die by the sword, by the 
famine, and by the ])estilence: and none of them shall remain or escape 
from the evil that I will bring upon them. And ye shall be an execra- 
tion, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach; and ye shall 
see this place no more. Know certainly that I have admonished you 
this day.— Jer. 42:11-19. 

That seems to be what Jehovah thinks of a people who 
would piu'chase peace at any price. 

The trouble, as we said before, is that we are ruling God 
and his righteousness out of the equation and substituting 



GOD AND WAR 21 

in their place a peace that is shanieful and a safety that is 
disgraceful to our humanity, and as the prophet said, a peace 
that is ''an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach," a 
peace that makes war on the United States not only possible, 
but probable. 

Peace advocates could do worse than commit to heart 
Lincoln Colcord's poem, entitled, Vision of War. This is 
what he says about peace: 

Peace is the cry of the world, O let me be! 

Peace is the cry of the body, O hurt me not! 

Permit me to eat my fill, sleep, be warm and contented; 

I wish everyone in the world were as happy as I am; 

And I think if everyone had lived as well as I have, and worked as 

hard, he might be just as happy; 
So let us have peace, and all will turn out well. 

What ask you, Soul? Ask you these things? 

(Tell me first if there are any wrongs to be righted; 

Tell me if justice is everywhere accomplished; 

Tell me if all men, rich and poor alike, are paid according to their 

just deserts; 
Tell me if governments are performing Avorks of brotherhood and 

love ; 
Tell me if parliaments are voting righteousness; 
Tell me if citizens are intelligently supporting righteousness; 
Tell me if democracy is free and universal; 
Tell me if greed, and selfishness, and insincerity have vanished from 

the world; 
For I am pledged beyond transgression to fight the fight of truth, in 

every time and place; 
And until I look upon the face of truth enthroned, I may not rest or 

falter.) 

And now are we confronted with this question. Is not 
God for peace, and notwithstanding our transgressions and 
remissness, cannot he interpose and save us from war and 
bloodshed? 

The careful student of history is often inclined to think 
that God is for war, and very decidedly. Let me say in passing 
that the assumption that God is always for peace is as unwar- 
ranted in the sacred Book and by existing facts as anything 
one can imagine. They were the false prophets, under the old 
dispensation, who were all the while crying for peace. They 
were on the other hand the Jehovah prophets who constantly 
responded, there shall be no peace. 



22 GOD AND WAR 

We are aware, nevertheless, that the Bible is appealed to 
by our peace advocates and for a proof text they repeat the 
command, "Thou shalt not kill." Those words were placarded 
on the walls of the Congregational Hall, Beacon Street, of a 
Monday morning a while ago when the ministers had assembled 
there to talk of peace. 

But if these words, "Thou shalt not kill" are forced into 
a literal and unqualified meaning then our forefathers should 
not have battled the Indians who raided for seventy years the 
frontier settlements of New England. If the command, "Thou 
shalt not kill" is without limitation, then one should not protect 
one's self by killing tigers, wolves, wildcats, snakes and other 
destructive animals. All boy scouts should be disbanded for 
a part of their duty has been to kill flies, mosquitos, and gypsy 
moth pests in their breeding places or elsewhere; and all meat- 
eaters are under condemnation, for they are in league with 
the butcher. 

But is not this forcing an interpretation beyond sensible 
limitations? 

Well, then, let the interpretation be limited to our hiiman 
kind. May I, or may I not, strike the villain who is assaulting 
my wife or child, even if the blow I strike is fatal? The judg- 
ment may be wrong, but one may doubt very much' the 
Christianity of a man who, seeing a brute making an assault 
on a woman or a child, hurries home to read a chapter in the 
Bible and offer prayer for his daily bread, instead of leveling 
his gun, if he has one, straight at the miscreant and pulling 
the trigger when the sight is at its best. 

But what have our peace advocates to say as to that other 
command? "Whoso sheddeth man's blood by man shall his 
blood be shed." "Thou shalt not kill"! Those words under 
a strict, literal interpretation are nonsense in the kingdom and 
administration of God, and it is well to remember that "W'itli- 
out the shedding of blood there is no remission." "The scarlet 
thread" is an ordination of heaven and is an object4esson on 
every page of geological and human history. 

The evident meaning, therefore, of the command, "Thou 
shalt not kill" is this, "Thou shalt not commit murder." And 
war is not always murder. If it were then some of the com- 
mands of Jehovah are murderous. 

We read in the book of Chronicles that the armies of 



GOD AND WAR 23 

Reuben fought the Hagarites and were victorious, and the 
reason given is this : "Because the war was of God." 
And other passages read thus: 

The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name; shall a trumpet 
be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be 
evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it? 

Thus saith the Lord, I form the light and create darkness; I 
make peace and I create evil; I the Lord do all these things. 

One man of you shall chase a thousand : for the Lord your God 
he it is that fighteth for you, as he hath promised. 

But what you are quoting, someone is saying, is from the 
Old Testament. Well, we have the feeling that the Old Tes- 
tament is still of use and contains lessons of much value that 
the twentieth century would do well to heed. The critical 
Bible student, without difficulty, is able to find the Old Testa- 
ment concealed in the New, and the New concealed in the 
Old; the Book is one, though the Testaments are two. 

But let us turn for a moment to the New Testament and 
we shall find that the war spirit of the Old Testament is not 
an absent factor. We read in the New Testament that: 

There was war in Heaven; Michael and his angels fought 
against the dragon; and the dragon fought with his angels. — Rev. 12 : 7. 

We need not discuss the question whether this passage 
is to be interpreted literally or figuratively, but manifestly in 
in either case the meaning is that no place in the universe is 
too sacred for warfare if causes exist that demand an armed 
force, either that of aggression or resistance. 

Probably our peace advocates would have urged Michael 
to let the dragon alone, that it was none of his business; and 
then there would have been peace in Heaven (?) No! There 
would have been hell in Heaven. Peace did not come there 
until the dragon was vanquished and cast out, and his angels 
with him. (Rev. 12:7-9.) 

It was the Apostle Paul who commended those biblical 
heroes who "waxed valiant in the fight" and "turned to flight 
the armies of the aliens." (Heb. 11:24.) A profounder state- 
ment of the rightness and purpose of enforced judicial and 
military authority cannot be found than that announced in 
Paul's letter to the Romans: 

For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt 



24 GOD AND WAR 

thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good and 
thou shalt have praise of the same; for he is a minister of God to thee 
for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth 
not the sword in vain; for he is the minister of God, a revenger to 
execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. — Romans 13:3-4. 

And what saith the Lord, our Master.'* 

"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I am come 
not to send peace but a sword." — Matt. 10: 34. 

He that hath no sword let him sell his garment and buv one. — 
Luke 22:36. 

This command shows this at least, that there are times 
when the sword is called for. 

Is the reply heard that Christ was more an advocate of 
peace than of war.^ To be sure; but the peace of wdiicli he 
spoke to his disciples was not freedom from war among nations, 
but rather w^as the peace of God in the human soul; a peace 
that can triumph amid tempests, pestilence, the carnage of 
battlefields, and death in any form — that was the peace of 
which Christ spoke, and that he still gives to those who follow 
him. 

The battlefield rather than freedom from war is the world's 
inheritance and will be of God's permission, if not of his order- 
ing, to the end of time, and nothing Christ ever said promises 
any different outcome. This is what he says: 

And when ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, be ye not 
troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be 
yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against 
kingdom, and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there 
shall be famines and troubles. — Matt. 24:7-8. 

Do the great men of the day, and our peace advocates think 
they know better of these things than did the Lord Christ? 

And in the modern sense Christ was not altogether a 
peace advocate. He made an assault upon the Scribes, Phari- 
sees and hypocrites in language that almost strikes terror to 
those who now read it. And he drove headlong from the temple 
traders and money-changers who had made the temple of 
God a place of merchandise. 

But someone asks, what about a passage in the prophecy 
of Isaiah w^hich reads thus: 



GOD AND WAR 2.5 

They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears 
into pruning-hooks; nations shall not lift up sword against nation, 
neither shall they learn war any more. — Isaiah 2:4. 

Though this is from the Old Testament, still our peace 
folks are ringing all sorts of changes on the words, regardless 
of the seeming conflict with the prophecy of Christ and with 
words spoken elsewhere in both the Old and New Testaments. 

But let us see as to the significance of these supposed Old 
Testament prophetic words. The reading is this: 

And many people shall go and say, Come ye and let us go up 
to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and 
he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of 
Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 
And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; 
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears 
into pruning hooks; nations shall not lift up sword against nation, 
neither shall they learn war any more. 

This is to be noticed, that these are the words of a gather- 
ing of Gentile people who were looking and hoping for peaceful 
conditions they never found. These, therefore, are not the 
words of Isaiah, whose prophecies are never in conflict with 
the teachings of Christ. Isaiah merely recorded the words 
of the people who spoke them. The Bible reader should 
always distinguish between what the Bible says and what is 
said in the Bible. 

And then there is another announcement apparently 
overlooked by the advocates of peace in which this command 
is spoken: 

Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles: Prepare war, wake up 
the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: 
Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into 
spears; let the weak say, I am strong. — Joel 3:9-10. 

To tell the truth, w^e are tired of the unqualified reproaches 
cast upon war and of the oft repeated saying that "War is 
hell," though these words were first spoken by one of our 
bravest and noblest generals. 

Pardon me for saying that I am not altogether unfamiliar 
with war. 1 was in the war that cost the United States 
millions of money, and in round numbers, north and south, 
five hundred thousand lives, the flower of that generation. 



26 GOD AND WAR 

I fought through the jungles and swamps of Louisiana and 
along the bayous of Mississippi and before the rifle pits 
of Port Hudson, and until the present war with its submarines, 
Zeppelins, and shells filled with poisonous gases, unknown in 
the days of our Civil War, I venture to say that there are 
no horrors in warfare except death and mutilation that I have 
not experienced or witnessed. 

The present war with its carnage, and appalling sacrifice 
of human life, horrible beyond description, is also in some 
measure understood, and yet we insist, while there have been 
and are still battle scenes that are like hell, that war is not 
always hell, and that there are conditions and experiences 
far worse than war. 

"The destruction of life is bad," says Dr. Hedge, "but it 
is not the worst of evils. The waste of property, the desolation 
of cities and villages, the ruin of families, the tears of widow\s 
and orphans are bad, but the sacrifice of justice, the abandon- 
ment of principle, the loss of a nation's rights, are worse, in- 
finitely worse, for these are the only things that make life 
worth having; and if these can be maintained only at the 
expense of life, who would not say, let life be the price and let 
it be spent like water for the redemption or preservation of 
these better and greater things." 

"W'hile to engage in war without a clear necessity is a 
crime," says Southey, "still when the necessity is clear, it then 
becomes a crime to shrink from it. The soldier is not regarded 
in the Scriptures as the author of war, nor is he armed to 
encourage war; but is a minister of righteousness authorized 
to protect society and maintain order and tranquility." 

It would seem, therefoi'e, that the beautiful plea of non- 
resistance and non-interference under certain conditions in 
which society any day may find itself is defensible upon no 
conceivable ground; it is neither safe, sound, philanthropic 
nor religious. 

While we do not agree with everything said by ex-Presi- 
dent Roosevelt, yet his speech at the University of Paris 
while touring Europe, is beyond criticism : 

The good man should be strong and brave, that is to say, capable 
of fighting, of serving his country as a soldier, should the occasion 
arise. There are well-intentioned philosophers who declaim against 
the iniquity of war. They are right, provided they insist merely 



GOD AND WAR 27 

on the iniquity. War is a horrible thing; and an unjust war is a 
crune against humanity. But it is a crime of this sort because it is 
unjust, not because it is war. The choice should always be in favor 
of right, whethei- the alternative is peace or war. The question 
should not be simply: Is there going to be peace or war.? but should 
be: Shall the cause of right prevail.^ Are the great laws of justice 
once more to be observed.? And the reply of a strong and virile 
people will be: Yes, whatever the risk may be. 

The fact is that the day on which moral evil entered this 
world and corrupted human hearts, upon that day the sword 
began to have its use— even at the gates of Paradise and in 
the hands of angels and will continue to have its use until 
evil no longer exists. Wliile wheat and tares grow together 
on the same soil, and on the same soil they will grow until 
Christ comes, conflict with arms must be provided for. Peace 
measures in which the sword is dishonored or forgotten more 
than once have been tried; but with results strikingly uniform. 
Carlyle, speaking of a time in Great Britain when peace senti- 
ments were in the air, employed these words : 

The English nation, having flung its old Puritan sword and 
Bible faith into the cesspool, or, rather, having set its old Bible 
faith, minus any sword, well up in the organ-loft, with plenty of 
revenue, there to preach and organ at discretion, on condition always 
of meddling with nobody's practice, thought the same a mighty 
pretty arrangement, but found it hitch before long. 

And if there were no force back of civil law it would be 
only a name and one would scarcely dare walk day or night 
the streets of any large city. And if there were no warships, 
the plunder and treachery of black flags would imperil the 
commerce of all oceans and seas. 

It is equally true that all judicial processes rest upon this 
fundamental principle of restraint by fear or force. Whenever 
the existence of law and a magistrate to enforce it are neces- 
sary, that moment the presence of the sw^ord and likewise its 
use, are also necessary. It is a maxnn recognized by all jurists 
and statesmen that "Law is a dead letter unless there is force 
behind it." No representation or symbol of justice is complete 
except sword in hand — a sword always unsheathed. 

To lose faith in the Puritan sword and to fling it as Carlyle 
would say, "into the cesspool," or in other words, not to 
provide adequate military defences, and not faithfully to 



28 GOD AND WAR 

cultivate the military spirit at least until evil in the land shall 
cease, is not only treason to the state, but is unchristian in 
spirit. 

The day for melting cannon into church bells will be when 
men do as they would be done by, loving philanthropy better 
than greed or plunder. The longed-for day for beating swords 
into ploughshares will not have its sunrise until ploughshares 
can tin-n the furrow without fear of the bludgeon, nor until 
all other industries can be pursued without fear of cobble- 
stones, in the hands of an angry mob; but that day is not yet. 

It is not fitting at this time to engage in a discussion of the 
merits or demerits of any of our great labor strikes. But our 
contention with peace advocates in every case is this, that they 
are wrong in trying to put an end to war, instead of trying 
to put an end to that which makes war necessary, and there- 
fore justifiable in the sight of an infinite God. 

When strikes are in progress, the calling out of the militia, 
and even the calling out of the regular army, are not things 
to be deplored. It might be, in the state, a crime not to do this. 
Wliat is to be deplored are the causes that demand the presence 
of the state and national troops. The brickbat in the hands of 
workmen, the grinding greed of mine owners, and the ostenta- 
tion of wealth, are the cause of the trouble. Wlien, therefore, 
the brickbat goes to his place in the sidewalk, and mine owners 
are fair and considerate in their dealings, and when Christian 
socialism prevails, then guns may be stacked and swords go 
into the scabbard; but not till then. 

There exists at the present time an organization known 
as the "Carnegie Endowment." Its treasury holds one hun- 
dred million dollars, with an annual income of five hundred 
thousand. If this income is to be used to remove the causes 
of war, we commend it; but if used for seeking peace at any 
price, we would put every dollar of it back into the iron mines 
from which it was dug. Such endowment may become an 
agency very embarrassing to the general government and by its 
ample supply of funds may some day be a national menace, 
"a meddlesome nuisance," and a curse worse than national 
poverty. And the same may be said of the two million dollars 
set aside by Mr. Ford, of automobile fame, for use against 
national armament and in the interest of the peace propa- 
ganda — as if money in a world like this can secure or keep the 



GOD AND WAR 29 

peace! Peace is not a thing to be bought or bribed, flattered 
or coaxed. It will come of itself when the world is ready for 
it. Most of the peace efforts now making are, therefore, of 
the least possible account. The society called the "League to 
Enforce Peace," a name that seems self-contradictory, of which 
ex-President Taft is president, and the "National Security 
League," the "Massachusetts Peace Society," "The Navy 
League," "The Woman's Peace Party," and others like them, 
are of no avail except as they make for preparedness, and 
help in the recognition of God as the infinite Ruler, at whose 
disposal is the destiny of nations. 

When the Apostle to the Gentiles said, "W^ork out your 
own salvation (preparedness) with fear and trembling (without 
conceit), for it is God that worketh in you both to will and 
to do of his good pleasure (the co-operation of God and man)" 
(Phil. 2: 12), he announced what is fundamental and, there- 
fore, applicable to individuals and to nations the world over. 
Any different scheme for securing peace is to play with bubbles, 
or possibly with matches. 

Herbert Spencer showed himself not a keen prophet when 
he wrote that competition in traffic and industry among the 
nations will some day take the place of war. For was it not 
jealousy between England and Germany, growing out of corn- 
petition in traffic and industry, that had no little to do in 
bringing on the present war? 

A statement made by Admiral Fisk, that one may think 
needs qualification, is to the effect that while Christianity, 
as compared with civilization and commerce, furnishes the 
greatest hope for universal peace, yet even Christianity will 
fail to bring peace to the world, if not permitted to bring 
something else first. As evidence of this, the Admiral points 
to the singular fact that the warring nations are now evoking 
Christianity in order to stimulate patriotism, arouse the war 
spirit and thus actually to exert a powerful influence, not 
towards peace but towar<ls war. . And this may not be so bad as 
it at first appears, for a true Christianity is militant— must be 
so, in a world beset with evil. W^e may say, then, and without 
fear of contradiction, that there are no agencies on earth that 
can avert war while its causes, real, or perhaps, imaginary, 
continue to exist. Even religion will not interpose until the 
brotherhood of man is a more finished product than it is today. 



30 GOD AND WAR 

And now, in view of the odium that is cast upon war, 
whatever the cause, and by imphcation upon the teachings of 
the Bible concerning war, and by further implication upon 
the God of the Old Testament, who more than once ordered 
his people to the battlefield, one is justified in saying a few 
words appreciatory of warfare and of the war spirit. 

A general statement is this: While some wars have 
appeared to be without justification and, therefore, were 
criminal, others unquestionably have pushed the world up to a 
higher plane of civilization. It was by the wars recorded in 
Old Testament history and enforced by the commands of 
Jehovah that the idolatrous and murderous peoples of Palestine 
were conquered and the Israelites saved to become the nation 
from which sprang Christ and Christianity. It was by the 
fortunes of war that the Greek language was introduced into 
Asia, and that the world was united from the Cheviot Hills 
to the Danube and Euphrates, and thus rendering possible the 
early spread of Christianity. It was by war that the empires 
of Babylon, Egypt and India were unlocked and their material 
wealth and anticpiities of immense value to the Bible student 
were made known to the rest of the world. It was by war that 
Europe escaped the monotonous quietude of China. It was 
by war that the feudal system in 1346 was destroyed and the 
half savage tribes scattered over the different countries of 
Europe were consolidated into nations to the advantage of 
mankind. It was the French and English wars, 1754-63, 
that freed New England from the control of the French empire. 
It was the war of the American Revolution, 1774-1781, that 
saved the United States from continuing to be a province of 
Great Britain. Directly and indirectly by the wars of 1859-66 
and 1870 Italy was united and became a nation that was in posi- 
tion to curb the political ambitions of the Vatican which, in 
the judgment of the wisest statesmen, has been a blessing both 
to the church and state. Our war with Mexico in 1845, as 
unjustifiable as it seemed to be, resulted in freeing Texas, 
Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma and California from the 
wretched dominion of Mexico. The Civil W'ar of 186Q-64 
emancipated from slavery four millions of people and decided 
forever the question as to whether the Union is a nationality, 
or simply a league of states that can be dissolved at the pleasure 
of any one of them. ■ Our war with Spain in 1898, splendid in its. 



GOD AND WAR 31 

purpose and results, freed the Philippine Islands, Porto Rico 
and Cuba from a brutal and demoralizing tyranny. 

Nor is the argument in defence of war destitute of other 
important support. 

The saying once was, "that war and pestilence go hand 
in hand." But now war, medical science and the hospital 
nurse with her Christlike benedictions and almost sublime 
devotion and sacrifice, go hand in hand. 

Military control in modern times has nearly put an end 
to the scourge of yellow fever, a disease that civil administra- 
tion had unavailingly struggled against for centuries; and so 
far as one can see the disease would have continued to kill its 
victims for years to come had not the military spirit, the 
militant spirit, "the valiant spirit" of which Paul speaks, as 
cultivated and developed in the United States army, made an 
heroic fight against the disease; and now the world is largely 
free from that terror of the centuries. When the United States 
raised her flag in the Philippines the medical army corps began 
its fight against disease as well as against insurrection, and now 
on those islands the scourge of smallpox and cholera is almost 
unknown. The Canal Zone on the Isthmus of Panama, once 
the plague spot of the earth, was attacked by the same medical 
corps, and now that Zone is becoming one of the health resorts 
of the world. They were the officers of the medical corps with 
their militant spirit ordained to fight evil, who on entering 
Cuba, that had been a breeding place of deadly fevers that all 
the time were threatening the United States with imported 
death-dealing diseases, turned that island into one of the attrac- 
tive garden spots and winter resorts of the western hemisphere. 

The present war in Europe, as we are assured, is not 
without recognized compensations. 

It is the opinion of surgical and medical scientists that 
preventive medicine, surgery, sanitation, therapeutics, public 
and individual hygiene, isolation of the wounded, will make 
strides that would not have been thought of but for the stimu- 
lation of the battlefield. The getting of society, by the minis- 
trations of war, out of old ruts may cost a sacrifice, it usually 
does, but there is almost always in turn an immense benefit 
that comes from new incentives and opportunities. 

When speaking of war, we are therefore to keep this in 
mind that the business of war and of the military spirit when 



32 GOD AND WAR 

rightly employed is to fight evil, physical and moral, of every 
kind and wherever found. It is true that mistakes at times 
have been made in the exercise of this spirit, but the much it 
has done for humanity does not justify any people in trying 
to banish it from the world without being able to substitute 
anything in its place. 

There are several other phases of this subject that are 
scarcely less deserving of mention. For instance, the amazing 
triumph against intoxicants that never hardly had been 
dreamed of, and that two years ago seemingly would have been 
impossible, is an outcome of the present war. It is safe to say 
that more has been done in restricting that horrible and mur- 
derous traffic, at least among the fighting nations, than had 
been achieved by all other agencies during the last half century. 
Russia, which before the war, encouraged the use of alcohol 
because of the large revenue derived from it, completely 
reversed herself in that business. France has done much, 
Pmgland and Germany have done something, and if the war 
continues, they all will do still more. 

The Kaiser is on record as saying, "that military suprema- 
cy will rest with those fighters who are freest from alcohol." 
Before long he may, therefore, be compelled, as a war measure, 
to issue a command for strict prohibition. Of these facts the 
whole world is now taking notice, and some day may take 
action. 

In enumerating things that may be said in palliation of 
war, its beneficial effect upon soldiers themselves should not 
be overlooked. While doubtless war has debauched and ruined 
some men, it has evoked the most sterling manhood in others. 
It has stimulated enthusiasm in sluggish breasts and has 
awakened patrotism in hearts that never felt it before. Many 
of our peace advocates know nothing of the indescribable 
thrill and uplift that comes to a patriotic soldier who, standing 
in the line of battle is conscious that within an hour he may 
place his life on the altar of his country. Our peace pleaders 
never could have composed, or have sung the song of Deborah 
the prophetess. 

The surgeon-general of our Grand Army of the Republic, 
Dr. Lewis S. Pitcher, who probably more carefully than any 
other man has studied the physical and ethical effects of the 
American Civil War upon the enlisted soldiery, made the 



GOD AND WAR 33 

following statement to the favorably known reviewer, Mr. 
Edward Marshall: 

My general feeling is that the men who came out of the Civil 
War were better physically, mentally and morally than they were 
when they first joined the army. There is no doubt in my mind 
that almost every Northern soldier was materially benefited by his 
conviction that he was fighting for the right, and I am inclined to 
believe that this psychological benefit was at least as marked among 
the soldiers of the South whose convictions were certainly as vivid 
as those of the Northern troops. 

Commenting upon the present war, the Rev. Dr. R. J. 
Campbell of London offers the opinion, to repeat his own 
words, that "England is living on a loftier religious plane than 
when the war broke out." The London correspondent of the 
New York Evening Post puts the matter thus: 

The clergy of all denominations are rejoicing in the larger 
opportunity that is coming to them, not only in their increased con- 
gregations, but in the more attentive hearing they are receiving. 
Unselfish zeal is frankly and thankfully recognized, even by those 
who are still of the opinion that war has closer affinities with hell 
than with heaven. 

We read in the English Friend these words: "Amid the dark- 
ness one of the gleams of hope we should prize and cherish is that, 
while but a few weeks ago English people were divided into a variety 
of groups of persons trying to get something from the State in support 
of their particular interests, now the country, and in its smaller sphere 
the society, is full of persons banded together to give something to 
the State. Everybody is not only willing to help, but anxious to 
help, and the problem is to turn this immense fund of personal 
service to practical account. 

"Kitchener's call for recruits has awakened a spirit of self- 
sacrifice in all classes of the community. If we may believe the 
Times' History of the War, it has even been an effective agency in 
the reclamation of habitual criminals. According to that publica- 
tion, Tt is not a coincidence that throughout Britain the war period 
is marked by an amazing absence of crime. There may seem to be 
no direct antagonism between a scheme of world-war hatched at 
Potsdam and a burglary planned in Whitechapel. But many a 
burglar, moved to honest indignation by the German outrage, enlisted 
as a soldier or found some other way to declare himself on the side 
of the Right; and thus many police officers are set free, to protect 
the nation's interests, instead of watching criminals.' " 

The same essentially is true of France. A correspondent 
writing from Paris says: 



34 ' GOD AND WAR 

No country is being so spiritually awakened as a result of the 
war as is France. She has emerged from the long period of material- 
ism and indifference that has cursed her, and the churches of the coun- 
try are being filled with devout believers. France is now turning 
to the living God. The Reformed Church and the Methodists, and 
other branches of Protestantism, are reaching the life of the people 
and are proving everywhere centers of spiritual power unknown of 
late years. 

In our own country, from the nature of the case, the change 
for the better since the European war began, is not so pro- 
nounced as in Europe, but it is clear that materialistic evolu- 
tion, unbelief in God, and disregard of his word are making 
no new inroads in the thoughts of our people. Men are begin- 
ning to feel that war is a serious business even though it is on 
the other side of the Atlantic, and when men are serious they 
are thoughtful, and are more inclined to be religious when 
"the flaming image of eternity" confronts them. The count 
in New York City shows that there has been an increase in 
church attendance since the war began of from twenty to 
twenty-five per cent. And if our people w^ere more in the war 
zone than they are, patriotism as well as religion might more 
generally prevail, and the feeling that we ow^e the nation a 
debt the moment the country is in peril might be uppermost. 
There is many a man, should war be declared, who would 
pay his taxes with better grace, feeling that something worth 
while is being done with his tax money; and many another 
man would rise to the highest dignity of self-sacrifice and with 
tear-filled eyes and choking voice would bi4 his only son go 
in defence of his country, or to right the wrongs of some other 
country. Patriotism is not dead in America, but is in need of 
something to awaken it, and that something would be a call 
to arms. Quicker than most men dream, sacrifice under that 
call would take the place of selfishness. The soldier who has 
left a home of luxury would be found singing patriotic and 
religious songs in the war trenches and if the stress were severe 
enough, women whose lives are now worse than empty and 
useless, would be found bearing, with calm and splendid 
patience, burdens and sorrows that now seem far beyond their 
strength or disposition. 

And judging from the effect of the war in England upon 
the low-downs and criminal classes, we may infer that if we 



GOD AND WAR 35 

were drawn into war that there are burglars, pickpockets, 
thieves and hoodlums who are a terror in our cities, and tramps 
who are a terror to our less populous towns, who would rise to 
a plane of decency and even of honor, if they would enlist 
in the army and offer their lives in defence of the stars and 
stripes. The incentive and opportunity might be to them 
redemptive. And it is not a harsh .judgment to say that the 
present generation of young men of well-to-do families are 
sadly in need of a schooling that times of peace never will give 
them, and that a certificate that they once stood before the 
cannon's mouth, or in a war trench would be in the future 
worth more to them or to the family name than a diploma 
from any college or university in Christendom. 

But on the other hand, we shall be pardoned for saying 
that the counsels of Mr. Bryan and those he represents, if fol- 
lowed, would be a sure way of emasculating American manhood 
and American womanhood. 

Students of Israelitish history recall the fact that there 
was a time, in the days of Shamgar, when the highways were 
deserted, when travellers skulked in byways, and when idolatry 
prevailed with all sorts of attendant degradations. And that 
was the very time when the military spirit was dead and when 
there was not a shield, nor a spear, by way of armament, 
among the forty thousand of that miserable, Israelitish people. 
It was at length a woman who lived on Mount Ephraim, the 
prophetess Deborah, who aroused the war spirit and stood 
side by side with Barak, the commanding oflScer, when battling 
for Israel. xAnd it was another woman, Jael, the Kenite, who 
drove a spike into the head of Sisera, the commanding general 
of the army that had been sent to put still greater indignities 
upon the unarined and non-resisting Israelites. Jabin's army 
was defeated; Deborah sang a war song, the oldest on record; 
the glory of Israel was restored and there was a time of pros- 
perity that lasted forty years. Full of wisdom is the saying 
that "wars are the birthplaces of new eras." And Deborah, 
and Jael, and the Maid of Orleans, and others like them, make 
one think that women may have some rights in this world 
after all that has been said against it 

Songs sung in praise of peace, doubtless deserve repeating, 
but the war song of Lincoln Colcord already referred to, 
entitled Vision of War, is certainly of no less merit: 



36 GOD AND WAR 

There, on the field of carnage and death, stand forth the highest 

instincts of the soul; 
There find ye courage, strength, nobility, ungrudging service; 
There find ye infinite tenderness and compassion, the generosity of 

worthy foemen; 
There find the surest instances of friendship and humanity; 
There neither lies nor lying thoughts nor base suspicions; 
There honored, truth believed; 
There miracles of faith made manifest; 
There souls' co-operation, pain subdued for others' sake and for the 

cause ; 
There nothing held back, the last gift freely given; 
There spirit's power supremely shown, rising to greater and greater 

sacrifices ; 
There marvels, too, of bodily strength, endurance, health, the body 

supremely shown; 
(For the body is only supreme where the spirit is supreme;) 
There life stripped of its fundamentals, seem at last, in the cold and 

hunger and wet, in the pain, in the presence and hour of death; 
x\ll simple, wise, heroic, natural, true. 

There near-appearing, the dream that stood far off in times of peace; 
Love without bond, love compassing the enemy and friend alike; 
Unselfish love, a flash of the ideal; 
Love of humanity — the Brotherhood of Man! 

And now shall we say that war is hell and never anything 
better? War often has been redemptive; hell never is, and 
in that fact is a broad distinction. 

Wliile war has its desolations and horrors, yet the student 
of history need not read far before discovering that peace as 
well as war also has its desolations and horrors. vSuch evils 
as cowardice, selfishness, stagnation, moral corruption, irreli- 
gion, and practical atheism have had their most vigorous 
growth, not in times of war, but in times of peace. 

Rear Admiral Fisk, of the United States navy, writing in 
the October number of the North American Review (1915), 
thus states his opinion on a yet broader basis: 

The trend of nations has been towards a clearer recognition 
of the efficiency of military power and an increasing use of the in- 
strumentality of war * * * The experience of men has shown 
abundantly that no moral, mental or spiritual force, nor argument 
or persuasion, but physical force has been the most effective agency 
in national affairs and is so still. 

And now% in view of all w^e have been saying, does not the 
conviction deepen that God need not offer an apology when 



GOD AND WAR 37 

the inspired writer says, "The Lord is a man of war; the Lord 
is his name?" And need the Christian offer apology when his 
Lord and Master says, "I am not come to send peace on earth, 
but a sword"? 

Those who are opposed to war, have for their stock argu- 
ment the monetary costs and death rolL Here, again, are shown 
selfishness, cowardice and atheism, or at least it is shown that 
God is not potentially in ail the thoughts of these peace men. 

As to the cost of war this much can be said: If w.e are 
engaged in the cause of righteousness, God can give years of 
plenty and refund with interest all losses. The silver and gold 
are His and the cattle on the thousand hills and all are at His 
disposition. But if we shrink through cowardice and selfish- 
ness to do what should be done we may find ourselves putting 
the money coming to us in these prosperous days, as the 
prophet said, into a bag with holes in it. (Haggai 1 : 6.) Or 
what is worse, the crops of the fields on which much, if not 
almost everything, depends, may be overtaken at God's com- 
mand by blasting or mildew, grasshopper or palmer-worm. 

As already suggested. Old Testament teaching and warning 
belong to the twentieth century as well as to the centuries 
before the dawn of the Christian era, and are as applicable to 
Americans as to the peoT)le of Israel. 

God's control of the elements and His use of destructive 
agencies for chastisement are thus set forth by His prophet : 

And also I have withholden the rain from you, when there were 
yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one 
city, and caused it not to rain upon another city: one piece was 
rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered. I 
have smitten" you with blasting and mildew, and when your gardens, 
and your vineyards, and your fig-trees, and your olive-trees increased, 
the palmer-worm devoured them. — Amos 4:9. Comp. Ex. 23:28; 
Joel ^-.^5. 

We cannot, therefore, reckon upon another year's grain 
crop large enough to feed our own people, whatever may be 
the planting, unless God shall add his blessing to human effort. 
It is, therefore, suicidal to haggle, or hesitate at the cost of 
war. If it is just in the sight of God, there should be no fear. 

As to the death roll, no one can tell how large it will be 
if our countrv is drawn into the war, but even that does not 



38 GOD AND WAR 

matter so nivich as some men think. The views of life that 
our peace advocates entertain are not always on the highest 
plane. The entire trend of Bible revelation is that liunian 
life is not to be accounted the greatest thing, but the giving 
it up for a worthy cause is its crown and glory. The Jeho- 
vah prophets, the apostles and our Lord himself held views 
of life, of death and sacrifice very different from those most 
men entertain. 

We can live but n brief space at the longest. The soldiei's 
who died fighting in the armies of Assyria, of Greece, of Rome 
and Carthage preceded only a little those who did not fight 
and the men who out-lived those wars are all dead. 

Many soldiers who fought under Nelson, W^ellington and 
Napoleon were killed, but those who were not killed then, are 
dead now. The same may be said of our Revolutionary sol- 
diers, and very shortly of all the Civil and Spanish War veterans. 
Only a hundred years and it will matter little so far as the pres- 
ent life is concerned between the millions who have fallen in 
th(* war now raging, and those who stayed at home. "The 
dread artillery of time" never hears the command, "cease 
firing!" 

And there are many forms of death just as dreadful 
and deplorable as death on the field of battle. One would 
rather be shot to death by a rifle bullet than run down by an 
automobile. The miserable death of the drunkard in delirium 
tremens; the horrible deaths of suicides who cut their throats, 
shoot themselves through the heart or brain, throw themselves 
in front of a railway train, are from some points of view many 
times worse than death on a battlefield. 

Among the last words spoken to me by a retired naval 
officer when dying were these: "The regret of my life now is 
that I was not killed in battle on a man-of-war." 

And when we are sober enough to think, we know that 
the matter is not how we die, or when, or where, but how have 
we lived. We know that we are not in this world to live at our 
ease, or to pile up fortunes or to get a great name, but we are 
here to do something that is worth the mention and to help 
make this world better and fitter to live in, and if deatli is the 
price to be paid, then welcome death on the battlefield or 
elsewhere, should be the attitude of every man who bears the 
Christian name. 



GOD AND WAR 39 

Having shown that God is to be reckoned with in all one 
may think, or say of war, and that he employs war as one of 
his agencies in the chastisement of the nations, and that war has 
its compensations, and is sanctioned in the teachings of the 
sacred Scriptures, we now return to the question already asked, 
but only partly answered, Are the United States to enter the 
war zone in spite of all efforts now employed to prevent it? 

Since God rules, man can speak only of possibilities, or 
at most, of probabilities. God is working out a plan, and for 
ought we know, that plan may not be perfected until not only 
the United States but every nation on this planet is in a 
conflict at arms. 

While the war now waging may not be the Armageddon 
of Bible prophecy, yet Armageddon may be the outcome before 
a final peace can be declared. 

We may note, first ctf all, that our inordinate conceit, 
self-assurance as to safety and consequent unpreparedness, 
are not taking us away from the war zone, but leading us into 
it. We are told that in a few years our population will number 
two hundred million, and that we now are a mighty people, a 
hundred million, and that in case of war a million men would 
spring to arms between sunrise and svmset; that our American 
people are natural born soldiers, and that we could equip a 
million men over night. But those who talk in terms of millions 
have but a poor conception of what it means to equip and 
discipline a million undisciplined men. We could be whipped 
twice over before that could be done. 

Rear Admiral ~"Mahan speaks of our "national, ignorant, 
self-sufficiency"; that phrase is well taken. The Germans 
have spoken of our "colossal innocence," and those words are 
equally well-timed, and our colossal conceit might be added. 
The Japanese have spoken of us as a nation of "what-nots '; 
and honestly what else are we? And the evidence is over- 
whelming that we are a wabbling nation. 

Some people are quite confident that in case of war the 
mass of our recent immigrants, in gratitude for what America 
has done for them, would shoulder a musket, fight in our behalf 
and frighten away the invader. But, alas, gratitude is the 
last emotion that has been felt in the hearts of our recent 
immigrants. 

And we do well to recognize the fact also that there are 



40 GOD AND WAR 

conflicting interests in these United States, and that we are 
very far from centralizing them for the pnbHc good. Our 
recent immigrants, as suggested by the author of "Problems of 
Power," are forming states within oiu- state — an Irish state, 
an Italian state, a German state, a Scandinavian state, a 
Hebrew state and a Roman Catholic state. The hyphen has 
been thought to be an unnatural product of our soil. But, 
unfortunately, the hyphen has been forced upon our negro 
population and upon the yellow races, and is preferred by 
many others to any different, or closer connection with our 
country. Between the rich and poor, between the laborer 
and the employer there is a long hyphen — a breach really; 
and what is coming of it no one can tell. 

And native Americans and Protestant citizens are being 
treated in some of our large cities as if they were foreigners, 
having merely hyphen connections, and having no rights, in 
religion, education or politics that are worth respecting. 

Whether, therefore, in case of war all these various peoples 
could be centralized into one brotherly commonwealth of undi- 
vided interest and sentiment is a matter of grave uncertainty. 

There were Tories during our Revolutionary War, Copper- 
heads and Hunkers during the Civil War and Obstructionists 
during the Cuban War. Is it, therefore, less likely, in case of 
another war, foreign or civil, that there may be those wdio will 
play the part of Tories, Copperheads and Obstructionists? 
Our peace advocates and hyphenized people are also pronounced 
and numerous enough, if war were more threatening than it is, 
to be a downright embarrassment, if not a menace to our 
government . 

There is another fact that cannot be overlooked. It is 
this, that we are no longer an isolated country. To thoughtful 
minds, grave responsibilities were incurred when we took part 
in the Peking Expedition in 1900, though we do not say that 
that step was unwisely taken. The same is true when in 1913, 
without waiting for the co-operation of other nations, we made 
haste to be the first to recognize the new Republic of China, 
and along with the recognition we extended almost effusive 
congratulations. While all this w^as not conservative, yet 
the recognition and the congratulations need not be criticised. 
But having done this which was not "a hands-off policy," 
what shall now be said when our government hesitates to unite 



GOD AND WAR 41 

with other nations in an effort to preserve that repubHc? 
Uncle Sam in this act will add to his reputation of being 
a wobbling coward. 

When we established ourselves in the Philippines, in the 
Sandwich Islands, in Porto Rico, and when we built the 
Panama Canal, each end of which and the ten mile strip along 
its entire length, myst now be maintained as United States 
territory, we assumed responsibilities that we must not now 
try to escape by running away. And the Monroe Doctrine, 
"that shining star of authority in the western hemisphere," 
adds much to our present perils. 

W'illiam Morton Fullerton is correct in suggesting that 
"the luxury of the Monroe Doctrine" may be mighty expensive 
when a little later we are called upon to defend it. We are 
not speaking against the doctrine nor against its defense, for 
both may be regarded as thoroughly Christian, as well as a 
political and protective measure, but the point is that we must 
abandon the doctrine, and even abandon the highway that leads 
to a '*world power," towards which we have been traveling 
in the last forty or fifty years, or else we must build a navy 
and organize an army that will command not only the respect 
but the fear of all other nations. We must be in position to 
guard our Atlantic coast and our Pacific coast, and have a 
voice, and a strong voice, in the affairs of the Caribbean Sea, 
for it is far from being a dream of lunacy that the centre of 
interest, or "of gravity," in this world, as it has been put by 
Fullerton, "will soon be shifted from the Mediterranean to the 
Caribbean Sea." 

W hile enumerating the possibilities, at least the danger 
of war, there should also be mentioned the fact that we are no 
longer feared by any nation that would care to fight us. And 
whj^ should we be feared, or even respected, when we allow 
Mexican troops, Indians or bandits, it matters little which, 
to kill American citizens and soldiers, not only on Mexican 
soil, but to cross our borders and do the killing at ovir very 
doors, and we meantime not daring to follow the murderers 
across the border line lest we get into trouble .^^ How much 
longer must American citizens for protection crawl into a hole 
or flee from their homes .f* A world of lookers-on, before we 
know it, may render the verdict, that America is a nation of 
cowards, or peace-worshipping lunatics. Our national lust 



42 GOD AND WAR 

for money and our lust for commercial advancement and profit 
may be no worse in the sight of Heaven than our lust for peace, 
for under strict analysis the tap root in each case will be found 
the same — cowardice mingled with selfishness. Plainly, what 
the government at Washington has been in need of is a revival 
of self-respect. It is to be hoped that we are not too far gone 
for recovery. Our attitude in Mexico and elsewhere, except 
in Hayti, reminds one of a story that Lieutenant-General 
Huyshe, a hero of the Indian Mutiny, used to tell on one of his 
fellow-countrymen who had entertained a French guest. The 
Parisian had flirted with the ckiughter and was detected in the 
act of eloping with the host's wife. Then the master of the 
house called him aside and said : "You have lowered the moral 
tone of my daughter; you are about to elope with my wife. 
I warn you, a little more of this and you'll rouse the sleeping 
lion!" 

And so our sham, mystical peace policy has suggested to 
the world that we are waiting submissively to be disregarded, 
disrespected, cuffed and kicked again and again, by anybody 
disposed to do it, and even then show no resentment that 
means anything. W^e have hung up in the halls of the nations 
for them to look at, a bird-cage, with a dove in it, as an emblem 
of what the United States intend to do in case of an assault. 
The symbol would better be a piece of sackcloth and a handful 
of ashes. 

No nation on earth has given a more pitiful exhibition of 
imbecility than has the United States Government in the last 
two years. W^e have shown courage only suflBcient to attack 
the insignificant negro republic of Hayti, and are now holding it 
as conquered territory, a most humiliating affair in view of what 
we dare not do in Mexico, or what ought to have been done 
outside of that republic. 

Ten years ago not a nation on earth, excepting perhaps 
one, w^ould have thought of crossing swords with the United 
States. Today no one of the nations in Europe or Asia, having 
any standing as a world power, has the least fear of a contro- 
versy or a conflict with the United States. Such is the outcome 
of our sickening, sentimental politics. 

President Poincare, in his message to the French Parlia- 
ment February 20th, 1913, spoke these words that our nation 
and all others mav well heed : 



GOD AND WAR 43 

A diminished France, a France exposed by its own folly to 
taunts, or humiliations, would no longer be France. . . . Our words 
of peace and humanity will all the more be likely to be heeded if 
we are known to be more determined and better armed. . . . No 
people can maintain an effective peace policy without being always 
prepared for^ war. 

It has been suggested by those who are declaiming for 
peace that the countries now at war will be too exhausted, 
and financially too nearly bankrupt to venture a conflict at 
arms with United States. But he is not a careful student of 
history who thinks that bankruptcy would keep the nations 
of Europe and Asia from making demands upon the United 
States if a pretext could be invented — a thing always easily 
enough done. Bankruptcy is quite as likely to lead to impa- 
tience, temptation, and a desire to regain what has been lost 
as to be followed by quietude. It is the hungry beast, especially 
if it has just had a taste of blood, that is the more likely to 
spring upon an easy and exposed victim. 

But, it is asked, are we to think no better of man than to 
compare him to a blood-thirsty, hungry beast? The reply is, 
that evolution seems to be at present much worried that "men 
have slipped back once more among the beasts of the field." 

So that, after looking upon the incredible cruelty and 
slaughter now enacting by professedly Christian nations on 
battlefields and in conquered territories, is there any solid 
ground for hope that the standard of honor is so high and the 
losses by w^ar so great that the United States need have no 
anxiety as to being forced into a war zone? We are now a fat 
nation in a world with those that are lean, growing more and 
more so; redistribution will be the temptation. 

And if the European War should close right away and peace 
be declared, an outcome that some people are unwisely con- 
tending for and even praying for, are there not reasons for 
thinking that it would mean anything but the best for our 
country, at least if our reputation is not improved? 

Joseph Choate unquestionably is correct in saying, "That 
the United States is one of the richest and most hated nations 
in the world." He might have added that in case of war we 
are not sure of an ally w^hose aid w^ould be of any service. 

Is anyone innocent enough to think that Germany, for in- 
stance, would not be minded to make demands and invite trouble 



44 GOD AND WAR 

if her hands were now free. She is so angry, and justly so, in 
consequence of our continued service to the Entente Allies, that 
she would be only too ready to put us to inconvenience and even 
pick a quarrel. We are talking today of the triumph of our 
diplomacy with Germany in the matter of submarine warfare, 
but that controversy has generated no affection for the United 
States, and it is quite certain that there would have been no 
triumph at all had German submarines proved as successful 
on the Atlantic as was expected. 

When the Lusitania was sunk our government, with high- 
sounding and threatening rhetoric, warned Germany not to 
repeat the crime. Was Germany alarmed by the warning? 
Not in the least. It was not because of any protest or threat, 
but because it was more to her advantage that she transferred 
the scene of slaughter from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, 
where the iVncona has just been sent to the bottom and more 
American lives sacrificed. And what are the United States to 
do about this procedure? Protest! But why waste the time? 
The supreme effort straight along seems to be, not to stop the 
slaughter of American men, women and children, but to find 
some excuse for Germany in what she is doing, so that we the 
more easily can swallow our shame and escape trouble. 

And this "Safety First" and "Hands Off" policy, most 
unfortunately, is slowly taking possession of the minds of our 
people; it is the "cult of cowardice and selfishness" that points 
towards a sure degradation. 

Triumph of diplomacy! Let Germany get her breath, 
which is not all gone yet, and that is the wonder of it, and she 
would tax our diplomacy by laying hands on Brazil in the south- 
ern part of which she is already well colonized. The Monroe 
Doctrine would not stand the least bit in the way. And she 
may well entertain the feeling that we never would fight for 
its defense whatever the provocation. 

The Panama Canal unquestionably is coveted by Germany, 
and why should it not be, and if coveted, how could we pre- 
vent her from taking possession, provided, of course, the present 
warfare should suddenly end? 

The Canal Zone being, as we have said, fifty miles long 
and only ten miles wide, coidd be easily moved against, either 
from the north or the south. Colombia would like to get 
back at the United States for the wrong not yet forgiven, to 



GOD AND WAR 45 

do which she might not hesitate to form an alhance with 
Germany. And if this were done, what could we do except 
to protest and be laughed at? 

But we are up against a greater than German terror. No 
one need be told that Japan is just now rising to an appre- 
hensive, if not to a threatening importance. Already she has 
felt a temptation. It is now two years ago, during the alien 
land controversy in California that Japan actually approached 
Germany, France and England as to financial support, requiring 
uo other, if she adopted aggressive measures against the United 
States. - Congressman F. A. Britten makes the charge that this 
information was presented to the State Department, but that 
through the "ignorance and impotence" of Mr. Bryan, it was 
not submitted to the congressional, military or naval commit- 
tees. This move of Japan establishes the fact that she has 
been as we said before, under the spell of a temptation to 
measure swords with the United States, a disease that among 
nations is not easily cured; homeopathic treatment has no 
efl'ect. Words, then the stick, is the divine method of curing 
temptation. 

Homer Lea, who is familiar with conditions in the far 
East, having rendered military service in China, 1900, 1901 
and 1904, in his Valor of Ignorance sounds this note of warning: 
"This republic and Japan are approaching, carelessly on the 
one hand, and with pre-meditation on the other, to that point 
of contact which is war." Lt will be difficult to show that 
General Lea has blundered in his observation. 

That we have wronged Japan, shamefully wronged and 
insulted her as to immigration, property ownership and natural- 
ization, there can be no question. And we have disgracefully 
broken our treaties with her and did this because California 
required it. The plea on our part has been that our union of 
states is such that the general government cannot enforce its 
treaty obligations in any of our states if an objection were 
raised. 

Suppose, therefore, that the Japanese should say to our 
general government, and very properly, you enforce your 
treaty obligations or we will make you; and if you cannot 
manage California we will take that state in hand and manage 
it ourselves. Are we prepared to resent that proposition 
should it be laid before us.^ In such an event, California and 



46 GOD AND WAR 

other Western States might plead in vain for protection and 
learn to be less almightily independent and impudent. 

Or what if Japan should go further and for an indemnity 
take possession of the Hawaiian Islands, and of Guam, Samoa, 
the Philippines and Alaska, and if any expense were incurred 
while taking possession, what if she should demand California 
and Oregon as indemnity, what could we do about it? We are 
today without a single first-class battleship on the Pacific 
coast, and as to the Pacific Islands the strategic position of 
Japan is many-fold better than ours. Is the apprehension, 
therefore, without foundation that we are in grave danger 
of sacrificing all these possessions "on the altar of the goddess 
of disarmament?" But perhaps our peace advocates will say, 
W^e would far better surrender these possessions and pay the 
indemnity rather than fight; for what are honor and land as 
compared with peace ! — May the Lord have mercy upon us ! 

There is another feature of Japan's position that is neither 
convenient nor pleasant for us, which has not been generally 
commented upon. It is this, that she now has in Mexico fifty 
thousand of her people and easily could add sixty thousand 
more. What then could we do if, with this hundred thousand 
people, she should decide to set up a Japanese government in 
that section of Mexico where she now has a footing? Mexico 
could not prevent it. Could we? Would we? Her fingers for 
some time have been itching for a coaling station off the west 
coast of Mexico. And that too is a progressive disease not 
easily cured. Sulphur and two or three other chemicals are 
the remedy; but we have no sulphur that we can administer 
to Japan; we are selling it out to Europe. 

And now, does the conceit of our conservative peace peo- 
ple lead them to say that Japan is in no way to be feared, and 
that all suppositions breeding anxiety as to what she may or 
may not do are the talk of jingoes? 

But let us take account of a few facts in view of which our 
masterful conceit may get a needed and deserved tumble. The 
man is only a know-nothing who can doubt that the Japanese 
are a powerful people — never more so than now; they them- 
selves know it, and other nations are not ignorant of it. 

In 1895 they conquered the armies of China and in 1903-4 
they defeated Russia, and from a military point of view, are 
far stronger today. Estimates have been made that they 



GOD AND WAR 47 

could mobilize and put into the field at short notice ten or 
twelve million soldiers, every one of whom knows something 
of the use of fire-arms. We think it not an over-estimate that 
in twenty-four hours' fighting, on a fair field, the Japanese 
could kill every soldier in our entire army and make an easy 
job of it. 

In 1909, Japan had an army transport fleet of ninety-five 
steamers fitted to carry one hundred and ninety-nine thousand, 
five hundred and twenty-six soldiers. This imposing war 
equipment does not include her passenger ships that in an 
emergency could be used for transports. And in this respect 
she is in better condition today than she was in 1909. 

On the other hand, the United States have in all, a fleet of 
only ten transport ships with a troop capacity of only fifteen 
thousand, seven hundred and fifty-eight. And there are only 
four of these ships on the Pacific Coast. The difference be- 
tween the United States and Japan in transport facilities are, 
therefore, startlingly troublesome to all except the blind and 
deaf. 

' The officials of our War College in Washington have 
estimated that Japan could land three hundred and fifty 
thousand soldiers in lower California in sixty days, with pro- 
visions for three months. Suppose she did this, and we should 
protest? A bland smile would be the reply and she would 
continue landing her troops. 

Another thing that our people fail to take into account 
is, what Japan has of late achieved in the shipping business 
and industry. She has secured the very last ship of the trans- 
pacific line of steamers. She has in the last twelve months 
increased her shipping tonnage four hundred per cent. And 
in the building of war vessels she now over-matches the United 
States by fifty per cent. She is running her factories at present 
on double time to supply Russia with war mimitions. This 
latter fact is unpleasantly suggestive. 

We have been counting on the Panama Canal, in the 
event of trouble with Japan, as an asset of immense value 
in facilitating the movement of our navy from one ocean to the 
other. But a Japanese writer of late has suggested that at 
the expense of an old steamship loaded with dynamite, the 
Canal could be wrecked to such extent that doing the best we 
could a year's time would scarcely repair it. 



48 GOD AND WAR 

The Japanese Bernhardi has pubhshed to the world that 
with a few sticks of dynamite, one at each point, every lock 
on the Canal could be disabled in almost no time. These sug- 
gestions show that temptations of this sort are lurking in the 
thoughts of the shrewd, undemonstrative Japanese. But at 
present these dynamite schemes appear to be quite unnecessary, 
for the Canal, without Japanese help, is badly wrecking itself. 

Who, therefore, unless more than half blind to existing 
facts, will not say that the United States will soon need two 
powerful navies, one on the Atlantic and another on the Pacific 
Coast .f* 

It is well to note, also, that the Japanese have been 
studying our coast line and it is suspected that they have 
charts of every mile of available seacoast from Alaska to the 
Panama Canal. Should she land at any point on our western 
coast and entrench herself, are we not powerless to prevent it? 
The report is almost incredible that our government has 
been so disregardful of preparations against invasion that we 
are without war maps of either the Pacific or Atlantic Coasts. 
And we may thank our stars, or to speak more like a Christian, 
we may thank God that Japan is not giving undivided atten- 
tion to America, being in doubt how soon her services may be 
required in Europe. 

But there is still another peril confronting the United 
States, growing out of possible alliances between Japan and 
other nations. Suppose, for instance, there were trouble 
between Japan and ourselves, could Mexico, under the rule 
of Carranza be trusted for a moment? That man would be 
quite as likely to form an alliance with Japan as with the United 
States; certainly this would be the case if a liberal offer were 
made by Japan to Carranza. And yet, we are now doing for 
that treacherovis wretch whatever he asks. We are furnishing 
him with supplies and allowing his troops to cross our terri- 
tory. W^e are almost using our soldiers to aid him in fighting 
Villa who has shown himself hitherto much more of a friend 
to the United States than has Carranza. 

The scenes in the streets of Vera Cruz may, therefore, be 
re-enacted. There our soldiers were killed by arms and ammu- 
nition furnished by the United States. We are now providing 
munitions of war for Carranza that a few months later may be 
used against us if Mexico should league with Japan. It is a 



GOD AND WAR 49 

play with matches; always a dangerous play. And this entire 
business of furnishing war munitions to those engaged in war 
while we are professing to be a peace nation, is an inconsis- 
tency that is nothing short of hypocrisy, and hypocrisy is 
pretty sure, sooner or later, to get back at the hypocrite. 

By recognizing Carranza we have not ended the Mexican 
trouble by any means, but unfortunately we have offended 
Villa, and if he should be defeated by Carranza, it may rea- 
sonably be expected that he would move west and cast in his 
lot with the Japanese. 

Another possibility appears not far in the background. 
We mean this, that if the way were open, and there is nothing 
now to prevent it, Russia, "with her ever growing hordes of 
countless races," would not long hesitate to align herself with 
Japan against the United States, especially if there were any 
likelihood of regaining Alaska by way of indemnity or in some 
other way, now that her immense resources are better known. 
It undoubtedly has caused Russia no little regret, if not bitter- 
ness, that Alaska is now annually yielding to the United States 
six times the price that was paid for it. Japan and Russia 
together would make a formidable foe if confronting any 
nation, we may say, especially the United States. 

And what shall be said of China with her four hundred 
million people? Though she is not now ill-disposed towards the 
United States, yet her wealth and her millions under the clever 
and ambitious guidance of Japan may some day make "the 
yellow peril" a very dangerously dark one. Providential 
interposition certainly appears to have averted from us "a 
swift catastrophe," at the hands of Japan and China 

Hardly less providential is it that European nations 
that have property interests in Mexico have not already made 
coercive demands upon the United States. Had there been 
no war in Europe it is almost inconceivable that those 
countries that have suffered heavy losses in Mexico should 
not have said to our government, It is through your cowardly 
and vacillating policy that we have lost much in Mexico. 
You would not allow us to enter that country and right the 
wrongs there perpetrated, nor would you go there yourself. 
You have been a dog in the manger. We, therefore, hold you 
responsible. What reply could be made? 

When Mr. Bryan was Secretary of State, American 



50 GOD AND WAR 

citizens who had made investments in Mexico asked for pro- 
tection. The reported reply was that they who had invested 
in Mexico had taken a risk and that the United States would 
have nothing to do in the matter. But that is a plea that Europe 
will have no mind to accept. And if England, France, Ger- 
many and other countries should demand a half billion dollars 
we should have to make a settlement. If we did not, they could 
say properly enough, You pay it or we will destroy your com- 
merce, blockade your ports and rain shot and shell upon your 
unprotected seaboard cities. If they shoidd say this, what 
could we do about it? Our present army could not defend three 
quarters of the area of the State of New York, and is almost 
fewer in number than those who attend a college ball game, 
or than those who followed President Wilson while doing a bit 
of shopping in New York City. 

Or if, when the war closes, England and France, being 
hard pressed for money, should propose to offset their losses in 
Mexico by the cancellation of the bond issue of five hundred 
million dollars, what could or would the United States do about 
it.f^ Incredible supposition ! do you say .f* 

But does the behavior of the European nations at the 
present time assure first-class business dealings? Let us not 
forget that we are living in times and under conditions that 
never before were thought of; so that no one can predict 
what will yet be the behavior of the warring nations when they 
are poverty-stricken. 

And if those who hold the bonds should appeal, in case 
of default, to the United States Government for protection, 
judging from the past, co\dd they look for anything better than 
some such announcement as this. Your people headed by Mr. 
Morgan and the banks, bought the bonds; you did this because 
you thought it was to your advantage, and now if you lose, 
the government of the United States can do nothing about it; 
those were private transactions and you must see to that 
business yourselves. 

Where, then, could those who hold the Anglo-French 
bonds look for relief? 

And if Germany should win out, whether or not she will 
God only knows, then where financially would England and 
France land? We are very sure that Germany knows how 
to pile indemnities mountain high, and are pretty sure that 



GOD AND WAR 51 

England and France, if conquered, could not in two centuries 
pay their indemnities and their war debts; the indemnities 
would have to be paid first. 

May we not, therefore, be pardoned for suggesting that 
it would seem quite as well for people who are in what are 
called moderate circumstances to hold off a bit, pay their per- 
sonal debts, provide for the payment of mortgages on house 
or farm, and then, if something is left, invest it in United 
States securities that will soon be on the market. For if an 
army is organized and a navy floated such as are now contem- 
plated, the United States must do one of two things, either 
issue bonds or go straight into bankruptcy. 

It is gratifying to note, however, that President Wilson 
and Secretary Daniels, who twelve months ago was a pro- 
nounced pacifist, and that some members of Congress are 
waking from an unfortunate slumber that we hope will not 
prove a national disaster because so long continued. 

What ought to have been spoken by President Wilson 
months ago was heard in his speech before the Manhattan 
Club, November 1st. The speech shows convalescence, but its 
lack of emphasis at some points and lack of clearness at others 
indicate that the recovery is not quite complete. 

As would be expected, Mr. Bryan "bobbed up" opposing, 
with a measure of bombast and pathos, the President's new 
views on armament and his departure from traditions; as if poli- 
tical traditions count in these times of upheaval and of the over- 
throw of past theories and policies. Two years have turned the 
world upside down. Why, then, talk of traditions? And why 
is the ex-Secretary so obstinate? Other men as wise as he have 
changed their views and conduct. Cicero in a letter to Atticus, 
speaking of civil war, said, "I never cease from urging peace; 
for an unjust peace is better than the justest war." But later 
different, if not a better thought, seems to have come to the 
great orator, and he joined Pompey in his fight against Caesar. 

Benjamin Franklin wrote these words : "There never was 
a good war or a bad peace." But later he stood among the fore- 
most of the instigators of the American Revolution and con- 
tinued in its support for seven years. Oh, brother Bryan! 
we are haunted with misgivings. Bumble bees! Nobel prizes! 
Will-o'-the-wisps I Precipice! Good-night! Reqniescat in pace. 

Secretary Lansing's warning to Great Britain, published 



52 GOD AND WAR 

November 8, is a notable State paper, and shows that the 
administration is improving over past deliverances in daring 
to rebuke England, as well as Germany, for her violations of 
international law. But until we act as well as talk, John Bright 
will not rise from the dead and speak in our praise. 

And now is the rejoinder heard that all this talk about 
war is the wildest sort of conjecture? Well, perhaps so, but 
not if God has judged that our national transgressions need 
correction and chastisement. 

Nor is a war in which the United States may be deeply 
and frightfully involved one whit less improbable than would 
have been a prediction two years ago that there would be war 
among the nations of Europe such as is now witnessed. Dis- 
tinguished men only recently were absolutely sure that 
national brotherhood had been so well established in human 
hearts that war henceforth would be impossible. 

Professor L. S. Block, author of The Future of War, 
a book that led to the first Hague Tribunal, wrote thus: 
"There will be no war in the future, for war has become im- 
possible." 

Dr. David Starr Jordan entertained the same opinion. 
His words are these: "W'hat shall we say of the great war of 
Europe, ever threatening, ever impending, and which never 
comes; humanly speaking, it is impossible." There have been 
other like predictions. And yet the greatest and most horrible 
war ever fought on earth is now fighting, with battle fronts a 
thousand miles in length, with cannon of such calibre that 
the earth trembles miles away at every discharge, with shells 
whose explosions shock men to death, with no other hurt but 
the shock, and with the sky, earth and sea converted into a 
common battlefield. 

No man, therefore, should be thought insane when an- 
nouncing the conviction that the liability of a war that shall 
involve America in immense trouble and even in disaster 
never has been greater than at this present hour. 

But is there no hope that the United States may escape 
all these war horrors and misfortunes.'^ We have not said that 
there is no escape. But we do say, what will be met with a 
derisive smile on the face of the thoughtless, that the people 



GOD AND WAR 53 

at large" have been looking for an escape from war in almost 
every direction except the right one — the right one being a 
trustful recognition of God in all our ways, a recognition that 
need not and should not in the least dismiss armament and 
preparedness. t 

The trowel in one hand, the spear in the other, and the 
true worship of God in the heart and on the lips were Israel's 
attitude and defense when surrounded with threatening 
enemies at the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. With 
these equipments the perilous work was carried on to its com- 
pletion. (Neh. 4:9, 16-18.) - 

And what said Jehovah through the great Lawgiver to 
the people of Israel may well be heeded in the times through 
which we are passing : 

If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and 
do them, I will give peace in the land, and none shall make you 
afraid: neither shall the sword go through your land. And ye shall 
chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. 
And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall 
put ten thousand to flight : and your enemies shall fall before you by 
the sword. 

But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these 
commandments; and if ye shall despise my statutes, so that ye will 
not do all my commandments, I also will do this unto you; I will 
even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, 
and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. 
And I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your 
heaven as iron, and your earth as brass; and I will make your cities 
waste; and I will bring a sword upon you, and ye shall be delivered 
into the hand of the enemy. — Lev. 26:3, etc. Comp. Jonah 3:1-10. 

At a later date when the people of Judah were face to face 
with their enemies, "a mighty host," they turned to God for 
help and were not disappointed. The record is of interest: 
"And then there come some that told Jehoshaphat saying. 
There cometh a great multitude against thee from beyond the 
sea. And Jehoshaphat feared and proclaimed a fast," and 
offered this prayer: "Oh our God, we have no might against 
this great company that cometh up against us; neither know 
we what to do; but our eyes are upon thee." Then one of the 
Jehovah prophets calmed the King with these words: 

Hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inliabitants of Jerusalem, and thou 
king Jehoshaphat; Thus saith the Lord unto you. Be not afraid nor 



54 GOD AND WAR 

dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not 
yours, but God's. Tomorrow go ye down against them: behold, they 
come up by the cliff of Ziz; and ye shall find them at the end of the 
brook, before the wilderness of Jeruel. Ye shall not need to fight 
in this battle; set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of 
the Lord with you, O Judah and Jerusalem: fear not, nor be dis- 
mayed; tomorrow go out against them; for the Lord will be with you. 
And Jehoshaphat bowed his head, with his face to the ground: and 
all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the Lord, 
worshipping the Lord. — Chron. 20:15-18. 

Are the United States disinclined to walk in such a path 
of safety? Perhaps the iVmerican people are too proud, or too 
unbelieving, or too sure of their war strength to think of taking 
God into their confidence, or of asking for His guidance and 
help. Well, that may be the case, but if so, alas, ye people! 

And may we ask if our wisdom is of a higher type than that 
of the patriarchs, prophets and apostles of our Lord who be- 
lieved in God, walked in His statutes, kept His commandments, 
and lifted up their eyes to Him when in trouble? 

Abraham Lincoln took God into his counsels and so did 
Stanton, his war secretary; should it, therefore, be thought 
effeminate or beneath our dignity if we follow their example? 

But there is no need of extending the discussion further, 
except to say that the conviction is deepening that war in the 
LTnited States in some form and from some quarter is just as 
inevitable as sunrise and sunset, and that we shall be cast into 
"the scrap pile of ruined nations" unless God shall interpose, 
and we have no right to look for His interposition unless we 
honor, fear and obey Him. And if at this late hour we shall bow 
in His presence and say: Oh Lord God Almighty, we have 
grievously sinned against thee and disregarded thy commands; 
we have not observed thy Sabbaths; we have worshipped gold 
and silver more than Thee. Forgive, and we will do this great 
wickedness no more. W^e will keep Thy commandments. We 
will act courageously instead of cowardly. We will be self- 
sacrificing instead of grasping and selfish. We will give a help- 
ing hand to all wdio need our help, be they Mexicans, Armen- 
ians, Africans or others, and will do this whatever the cost or 
sacrifice, even to the beating of our ploughshares into swords 
and our pruning-hooks into spears — if we will pray that praye;* 
in the pulpit, at the bar, at the workmen's bench, in the quiet 



GOD AND WAR 55 

of the home, and in the halls of legislation, and if we will render 
the service that such praying demands, then we shall have a 
mission in the world. "The sword of the Lord and of Gideon" 
will be drawn in our behalf: the God of armies will take com- 
mand and defend us against all our foes. He will send fear and 
trembling into the hearts of our adversaries, and command 
the tempest to sink the ships of war, whether they sail against 
us from east or west, and the United States of America will 
become a leader once more among the nations of the earth, and 
fulfill what we had dreamed to be her manifest destinv. 



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PreservationTechnologies 

A WOULD LEAOEH IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

ni Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



PROFESSOR TOWNSEND'S 
BOOKS 



The following books at present are out of print: 

Lost Forever; Intermediate World; Fate of Republics; 
Art of Speech (2 vols.) ; Mosaic Record and Modern Science; 
Faith Work, Christian Science and Other Cures; The Bible 
and Other Ancient Literature; Story of Jonah; Evolution 
or Creation. 

The following books, originally published at 
$1.00 and $1.50 per volume, now sold at 75 cents: 

Credo; Arena and Throne; God-man; Sword and Gar- 
ment; Supernatural Factor in Revivals; Bible Theology and 
Modem Thought; Stars Are Not Inhabited; Hell Is No 
Myth; History of the Sixteenth New Hampshire Volunteers. 

The following books at 50 cents each: 

Satan and Demons; God's Goodness and Severity; Adam 
and Eve, History or Myth; The Deluge, History or Myth. 

The following lectures and sermons, 10 cents 
each: 

Final Judgment; The Disreputable Woman and Her 
Conversion; Temptation; Righteous without Knowing It; 
God and the Nation; Penalty of Unrighteousness, More 
Unrighteousness; Paul's Cloak, or Consecration; God and 
the Islands of the Sea; Manifest Destiny; Esther, or the 
Wise Venture; John the Baptist, or the Ministry Christ 
Approves; Is There a God such as the Bible Describes; 
Doctrine of the Trinity; New Theologies, only Bubbles; 
Collapse of Evolution; End of the World, Biblical and Scien- 
tific Pomts of View; Bible Inspiration; Bible Studies, Rules 
of Interpretation, etc. 

These books can be ordered through the Chappie 
Publishing Company, Boston, Mass. Postage 
prepaid. 



LiBRftR'' 0*^ 



CONGRESS 



